Amy Wolfe

Q: What did you study in college, and when did you decide you wanted to go to law school?

In college I was a double philosophy and poly-sci major with a minor in gender studies. After I graduated in 2010 I did some road-tripping and traveling. I moved to Australia, where I worked and traveled before deciding I wanted to go to law school. I came back a little earlier than I expected to study for the LSAT in Washington, D.C. I worked a bit there before coming to NYU.

Q: Why law school?

I’d always thought about going, but I was worried that I might be choosing law school as a default option rather than as something I really wanted to do. Ultimately I decided that law school was the best way to achieve my goals; I’m really interested in gender issues and policy, and a law degree will significantly help me.

Q: Are you glad you took time off?

Yeah, I am really glad. It is my personal opinion that people should take a break. If you are worried about not wanting to come back, everyone worries about that. You should actually be allowed to not come back.

Q: What did you think law school would be like before you came?

I thought it would be a lot of work, and it is even more than I anticipated. It is not just schoolwork, but things outside of school. It is an aggressive time commitment, but I am a lot happier than I thought I’d be. I like NYU. I like the people; they make me happy.

Q: How have your impressions of law school changed since coming?

Before I came, I was figuring out where I should go to school, and I thought I would want a more secluded law school experience. I came to NYU independently of any desire to live in New York City. The biggest surprise for me was how much living here adds to the experience. It is not a distraction. Instead, my free time and study breaks are a lot more fulfilling because there is so much to do. I can go to Brooklyn, or to the Met. Being in NYC is amazing—there is so much to get involved with and ways in which you can help the community. I also have a lot of friends in the city. It is great for your sanity to not hang out exclusively with law students.

Q: What are some of your favorite or least favorite things about the NYU/NYC experience?

My least favorite thing is just how expensive it is. But just remember that NYC caters to everyone. There are an equal number of inexpensive things to do. One big thing is to not trick yourself into thinking that finding a cheap, cool place to eat out would be cheaper than cooking your own food. Even though the supermarkets can be expensive, cooking a lot is a better idea.

Q: What are you doing this summer and next summer?

This summer I am working at the Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust in Dhaka doing rape law reform work. I have an international human rights fellowship through the school, and I am very excited about it. With the fellowship, I get to take seminars and have the chance to work on a paper that I am really passionate about dealing with these issues. Next summer, I’ll likely be at a firm.

Q: What do you want to do after you graduate, and has that changed since you’ve started school?

Yes, it has changed, but not in an all-encompassing way. I am more interested in gender issues now, but I want to see how my work in Dhaka affects my career plans. Coming in, I wasn’t thinking about private firm work, but now I am beginning to appreciate the type of respect and networking opportunities you can get at a firm. You can accrue power and momentum for the types of things that you like to do. I am also considering clerking in the future, but right now I ideally might want to work at a firm that does pro bono work in fields that I am interested in.

Q: Any more advice for incoming students?

You should go to the law school where you think you’ll be the happiest. Rankings, yeah, they are definitely important, but might not be the best gauge of where you’ll thrive and succeed.

Yep. I'm leading with this picture. That should give you some idea of how Law Revue works.

Law Revue is a full-length original musical parody of law school. It is, far and away, my favorite thing about getting my J.D.

I fell all over myself to volunteer when my boss asked me if I wanted to blog about Law Revue. As one of the writers, performers, directors, and producers of this year’s show (I’m kind of a Law Revue gunner), I’ve found it to be one of the most important parts of my second year in law school. BACK TO THE NYUTURE was, in my completely unbiased opinion, one of the best Revues staged at NYU in recent memory–and a truly astonishing amount of work went into getting to curtain. After all, the show’s completely new. Every. Single. Year.

It all starts in August, when a crack team of nine brave men and women buy a bunch of beer, sit in a room, and start making lists of everything about law school worth making fun of (it is a very long list, and very easy to write). This list becomes a plot outline; the plot outline becomes a script; the script becomes a full-on 2.5-hour original masterpiece of musical theater complete with over a dozen parodied pop, rock, and show tunes, multiple video scripts, and a gripping, detailed (mostly coherent) storyline. You’d be surprised how long this iterative process takes; while it’s a huge amount of fun, the effort to fill two and a half hours with consistently funny content that won’t get us in trouble with the administration is a task of truly monumental proportions…but sometime before December exams, the six producers (yes, we call our student group leaders producers, and no, they don’t invest money) get a finished script.

After that, things start moving quickly. The show is cast. Rehearsals start. We bring on tech superstars, stage crew, set designers, a small army of choreographers, a full pit band, videographers, video editors…in sum, nearly 100 NYU Law students are involved by the time dress rehearsals start. Over spring break, we hang lights, build sets, and start the arduous, all-day rehearsals anyone who remotely touched high school theater will fondly remember as “Hell Week.” The result of all this hard work? Four incredible–INCREDIBLE–performances in NYU Law’s 450-seat Tishman Auditorium. This year had it all: guest faculty appearances, a steaming parody of “The Cellblock Tango,” time-traveling 3Ls, an anthropomorphized Constitution…you know what? I’m just gonna post some more pictures.

Just making a Jeopardy! board. You know. Law school stuff.

We dance, too.

And sing. This was one of two RENT parodies in this year's show. "We Need Some Jobs" to "Seasons of Love." Don't hate, you know it's funny.

Act II, Scene 5, or: Yes, Faces Work Like That

The Closing Number: Revue Shook You All Night Long

Revue is much more than just a show, though. It is an incredible community (most of my best friends came out of 1L Law Revue) of insanely talented people. It is a creative outlet in a sea of academic articles and case law. It is a source of sometimes-dauntingly-endless free food and drink. Perhaps most poignantly, however, it is a balancing force in a very unbalanced time in one’s life. In an environment so often myopically focused (and perhaps rightly so) on chasing that next gold star and checking that next box on the to-do list of life, it is remarkably liberating to have something completely, totally useless on your resume–something that serves no other purpose than to bring yourself and others joy, to make people laugh, to remind everyone–cast and audience both–that sometimes it’s okay to just put down the casebook, pick up a microphone, and have a ridiculously good time.

It is also sometimes okay to rip off your pants on stage.

Sad you missed it? You should be. But no fear! We’ll all be on stage next year. Until then, here’s a link to one of the music videos we made this year—so you can enjoy the awesomeness of Law Revue from the comfort of your own home! ~*MAGIC*~

“Last Thursday Night” from NYU Law Revue 2013

Official Admitted Students T-shirt

NYU Law hosts three weekends of Admitted Students Days (ASD) each year for bright-eyed 0Ls to take a gander at the next three potential years of their lives. The last chance for admitted students to visit during one of these formal presentations this year is on April 25-26. In case you are one of the stragglers remaining to visit, this post is written to give you a preview of what to expect.

As an NYU Law Student Ambassador, I have attended multiple events during at least six ASD weekends. It is true that most (okay, all) of the events involved food, drink, and socialization. As a prospective student, you’ll find that these social events are the best way to talk to current students in a more casual setting to get a real feel for what the student body is like. If you are speaking to a 3L like me, you will not have the privilege of being a classmate of that person. If, however, you are conversing with a 1L or 2L, that person could end up being your lifeline (or as Dean Ricky likes to joke at orientation, your life partner) in the future. Also, keep in mind that the general culture of NYU Law remains, for the most part, the same from class to class. Each law school has intangible qualities that define it. While you should consider dozens of factors when choosing the school that is your glass slipper, in the end, you will rely on gut instinct to decide which is The One for you. All this is just to say that we are a self-selected bunch at NYU Law.

Lunch on Thursday

The Office of Admissions puts on quite the Price is Right showcase at ASD to highlight what NYU Law has to offer. You start off Thursday with a lunch (say hi to me) and campus tours. After that, you get to make a class visit, choosing from seven available classes. Later, you can check out the many student organizations and journals NYU has. It will be quite a maze, so be sure to pick up a map and mark your spots at which to stop for treasure (figuratively or literally–more food and drink is to be had here). Following that is a panel of NYU Law alumni. Note here that the real deciding point in choosing a law school is determining which school is the best means-end fit for you. Everyone has different career ambitions (or you are coming to law school to kill time until you figure these out). Keep your eye on the prize, and think about which school will lead you there.

I wasn't joking about the food.

Friday morning you start the day off with breakfast and a chance to meet Dean Ricky. As a special treat for those of you who saved your visit to NYU Law as the best for last, you will get to meet the law school’s soon-to-be new dean, Trevor Morrison.  The rest of the morning is filled with discussions of special fields of the law, including corporate law, academia, and international law. You also can find out about the many clinical programs offered, as well as the judicial clerkship process. In the afternoon, you get to interact more closely with our faculty over lunch and through mock classes. For those of you who are public interest-minded (insert applause here), you will have the opportunity to learn more about our loan repayment assistance program (LRAP), which is hands down one of the best offered in law schools across the nation. The last event of the ASD is the Taste of New York Reception, which gives you a nice overview of all the food on which you will subsist for the next three years. I promise this is a good thing, as I still walk a block or less from the Law School when hunting and gathering my dinner each night.

NYU violets

Many special happy hours follow ASD, sponsored by various student organizations. Again, take advantage of the opportunity to familiarize yourself with student culture and the neighborhood. For the real insider’s perspective, stop by Triona’s to visit the local drinking hole at which the “regulars” congregate.

Finally, be aware that this post just contains the highlights of ASD. Also note that you can make your visit the experience you want it to be. If you have specialized interests, seek out professors, students, or offices that can answer your questions. Don’t be shy. And don’t be afraid to make a few wrong turns and end up on an off-road expedition. As my friends who live in the “bubble” would say, the worst that can happen is that you end up in Brooklyn.*

How sweet indeed.

*I am a loyal Brooklynite.

3:50 p.m.

I run out of Professor Erin Murphy’s Evidence class feeling invigorated and refreshed from having just learned about the forbidden and permissible uses of impeachment evidence. And by “invigorated and refreshed,” I mean more like I need a shower desperately, because carting around four classes’ worth of material on a unseasonably warm spring day has made me extremely sweaty. I am determined to go to Marden as non-sweaty as possible.

3:55 p.m.

Back at D’Agostino Hall. I have a package waiting for me in the kitchen! There’s only one thing that I love more than having packages delivered right to my room by the lovely D’Agostino housing staff, and that’s when packages containing exactly what I need for the day arrive. Today, it’s my all-natural deodorant. Yes, I splurged on deodorant. It’s the simple pleasures in law school that make the days worthwhile and hygenic.

4:15 p.m.

I think I just hit a new personal best in grooming preparation time. I head down to Vanderbilt Hall, where Moot Court Board officers wait for me. As a co-writer of the competition’s fact pattern, I get certain perks, including a commanding knowledge of the Miranda booking exception and also an invitation to mingle with the judges before and after the competition.

4:40 p.m.

Mingling is in full swing. We’re in the dean’s office! I introduce myself to Judge Albert Diaz ’88 from the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. Judge Raymond Kethledge (United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit) and Judge Kimba Wood (United States District Court for the Southern District of New York) arrive shortly thereafter, along with the new incoming dean of the law school, Professor Trevor Morrison. All this excitement has made me completely unable to eat the cheesy breadsticks that the event staff have set out for us. I have no regrets, but my stomach does a couple of hours later.

4:55 p.m.

We head down to Greenberg Lounge, where competitors and spectators await us. I pat myself on the back for making it this far. (Down four flights of stairs in heels, that is….)

5:10 p.m.

All four finalists voluntarily decide to gather in front of the judges’ table to take a group picture. When students at the New York University School of Law are not slinging verbal arrows at each other about constitutional rights, they are best buddies! Prospective students, take note. One of the spectators behind me also has a Marden bingo board with her, courtesy of one of the competitors. Incoming Moot Court Board officers, take note.

5:20 p.m.

The arguments begin! The two issues presented are (1) whether the “routine booking” exception to Miranda applies to questions about a suspect’s property during the booking process, and (2) whether a suspect compelled to provide unencrypted data can invoke the Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination.

5:25 p.m.

I start getting excited when the judges bring up facts in the record that I have oh-so-carefully crafted. I also giggle a little bit when some competitors say “Corgstland County.” Sources close to me can tell you that it may have to do with the fact that I am in love with corgis, especially Lawyer Dog. I will neither confirm nor deny this.

6:12 p.m.

I remind myself that these competitors have real names and should be referred to as Ridiculously Talented Advocates (kind of like the Ridiculously Photogenic Guy but for legal issues, not marathons).

6:20 p.m.

The judges have exited Greenberg Lounge, which means that Professor Samuel Rascoff can now begin his stand-up routine. Just kidding. He’s here to announce some awards for the competitors and Moot Court Board members, and then, in his words, “do three cartwheels afterwards.” Okay, in all seriousness, he’s a pretty amusing professor and manages to keep us entertained as we await the results.

6:40 p.m.

Zoey Orol ’13 receives the Orison S. Marden Award for Best Oralist. An instant standing ovation! Congratulations to Zoey! Definitely memorable: the look on her parents’ faces when she gets the award.

6:45 p.m.

The judges sing their praises to the competitors and to the problem authors! I resist the urge to run across the room and fist-bump my co-author, Mark Young ’14. Don’t worry, we fist-bump after the competition ends.

7:10 p.m.

Time for dinner with the judges, the outgoing and incoming executive board members, finalists, and school administrators! We are in Snow Dining Room for this occasion, and the setup is best described as “fancy,” or more accurately, “delicious.” As per tradition, we go around the table and introduce ourselves before digging in.

In Marden parlance, this is the first issue presented. Not "routine" at all, if you ask me.

And...the second issue presented. "Foregone conclusion" that it was tasty.

7:35 p.m.

Two members of the outgoing board toast each other to finishing their duties for Moot Court Board. Stay classy, 3Ls, stay classy.

8:35 p.m.

I leave the dinner with a full stomach, a sense of fulfillment, and an immense amount of pride for being on Moot Court. Tomorrow, I help the 1Ls on their oral argument assignment for Lawyering. Looks like the moot goes on, and on…. Until then, this is Tracy, signing off from the law school that never sleeps (close to exam time, that is!).

It is happening again here; this time it has only been half a year, and I am hearing it already: “This semester is going by so much faster than the last one.” I’ll hear this four more times before a final “It’s over already?” as we graduate in 2015.

The other day we had college students who had been admitted to NYU Law but hadn’t enrolled yet sitting in on our classes. I remember I made a friend at an Admitted Students event a few years ago who is now a 3L. We kept in touch while she entered school and I deferred for two years. I deferred partially based on her advice: she wished she had taken more time between college and law school. She is graduating this year, and I asked her again for advice and whether she was ready to leave school and get a job. She said no, she wasn’t ready to leave school, and once again she wished she had more time. So while some of us get senioritis and daydream about graduating, she is wishing she could stay in school longer.

I’ve been in the city for seven months, and I’m practically a New Yorker now–I hardly notice the cold, and I know how to get to Broadway from here. NYU Law is more than 16.67% over for me. I already have my first legal internship for the summer, and some of my friends are graduating.

Here, then, is my confession. The years actually ARE going by faster, and they will continue to every year. When I was a 10-year-old completing the fourth grade, one year of school was actually 10% of my entire life! As a 15-year-old in high school, though, a year of school was less than 7% of my life. Sophomore year in college as a 20-year-old was only 5% of my life. See the trend? Our perception of time changes as we age. Each year, each month, each week is relatively shorter than the last. Think about it: today is the shortest day of your life, and each day is getting shorter.

Law school means different things to different people. For some it is an end-goal, and for others just a stepping-stone to bigger things. For all of us, it is three years (of subjective length) of life. All of this adds up to something important. I’ll ask my friend for advice again, because I’m sure she knows what it means that these three years move quickly and only speed up. And I think she’ll tell me to enjoy them, because they’ll be over before we are ready.

Speaking of spectrums, the wide range of lawyering skills and abilities was almost immediately apparent after observing the eight attorneys giving their presentations. The arguments gave the audience insight into what the judges found persuasive and what type of advocacy style they responded to the best (which seemed to vary among the judges). These arguments were previously submitted to the court in written form by way of legal briefs, which students had an opportunity to review beforehand. Despite the dozens of pages in these briefs, advocates were kept to a mere 10 minutes for their arguments, with a few additional minutes provided for rebuttal.

Not all 10 minutes were filled with the attorneys’ arguments, however. Many times judges would jump right in after an advocate’s introduction, seemingly guiding arguments away from what was originally planned. The dynamic between the panel of judges and the attorneys giving the presentations felt, at times, adversarial, as the judges pushed them to answer their questions clearly and concisely. Throughout the morning, the judges would sometimes have to make several attempts to get an answer to a specific question. The three judges were also unabashed in expressing their concerns, and each judge tended to focus on different points of the case.

As mentioned at the question-and-answer session with the judges following the arguments, the Second Circuit is one of the few circuits to take a generous approach to the concept of hearing oral arguments in appellate cases. Judge Cedarbaum stressed the importance of oral argument for its ability to create a free-flowing dialogue between attorney and judge; this interaction could potentially elicit new information not otherwise included within the briefs submitted to the court.

In the next two months, almost every member of that audience will begin drafting and submitting their own briefs to the “court” and will be giving oral arguments in front of volunteer judges from across the city. Access to the appellate briefs written by the attorneys present at the Second Circuit oral argument will prove hugely beneficial for organizational and structural guidance, while the oral argument will undoubtedly help us prepare and present succinct, persuasive arguments when it comes time for our own nerve-wracking experience.

Nighttime at Singapore's Marina Bay

Singapore is a city, a country, and an island.  In many ways it is the center of the Southeast Asian legal community, as many international law firms operating in the region base themselves here. Culturally, Singapore boasts a unique blend of Chinese, Indian, and Malay influences. The national language is English, although it might be more accurate to say it is Singlish, an interesting local slang that I am still trying to fully grasp. (For beginners, just add “la” at the end of a few sentences, and you’ll get by just fine.)

NUS Law is next to Singapore's Botanic Gardens

Courses at NUS are known as “modules,” and as an exchange student I am to fulfill 16 NUS credits in order to receive 12 NYU credits. The four four-credit modules in which I am registered are not too different from typical offerings at NYU; I am enrolled in Mergers & Acquisitions, Entertainment Law, International Commercial Arbitration, and Foreign Direct Investment in Asia. Nonetheless, my classroom experience has been rather unique in comparison with what I’ve come to know at NYU.

I am the only American in any of my modules

I attend lectures alongside Singaporean undergraduate students, international exchange students, and graduate LL.M. students. In keeping with the broad diversity of the class rosters, many of my courses take a comparative approach to legal analysis. We review casework from a variety of jurisdictions, including both common law and civil law systems, although the majority of the cases and legislation that we study come from the U.S., the U.K., or Singapore.

As the “token American,” I am often called upon to offer an American perspective on whatever discussion may be occurring. Sometimes the questions are strictly academic, such as explaining the U.S. style of footnoting or assisting my baffled classmates in understanding why two corporations would want to perform a reverse triangular merger.

But other questions have been more… off-the-cuff. For example, during my very first Entertainment Law lecture, which focuses on pop iconography and celebrity, I was called on several times to express my thoughts on various aspects of American culture. The highlights: describing the impact that Tiger Woods’s scandal has had on his image, explaining the significance of spam within American culture, and contemplating what “talents” have given Paris Hilton her celebrity status. You know, classic “Socratic method”-type questions.

Lectures are three hours long

Course materials are distributed into our lockers

Studying at NUS Law is truly testing the limits of my attention span. Although three of my four modules meet just once per week, each lecture is a thorough three-hour session. My fourth module, dubbed an “intensive,” concluded after the first three weeks of the semester, but during that time we met three times per week, three hours each time. After enduring a few Hurricane Sandy-lengthened lectures at NYU at the end of last semester, I thought I might be prepared for the adjustment to longer sessions. I was wrong. At times I feel as if there’s not enough powdered instant Nescafé in all of Singapore to keep me alert for the duration of each lecture. But sleepiness aside, the long classes do allow us to cover a remarkable amount of material, and it is not unusual for professors to address over 100 pages of reading in a single class.

Attendance counts

In every class that I’ve taken so far at NYU, the final grade that I received has been based entirely on my performance on one culminating assessment, whether it was an in-class exam, a take-home exam, or a research paper. But at NUS, professors evaluate student performance throughout the duration of each module with various graded research papers, group projects, or simulations. Even attendance and classroom participation can contribute to some percentage of a student’s overall grade. In an extreme case, my Foreign Direct Investment in Asia module involves a lengthy in-class contract negotiation, and as such attendance and classroom participation comprise 50% of the final grade.

Extracurricular activities

A quick tangent: I remember about a year ago I was sitting through one of the mandatory PILC summer funding info sessions. I knew that I wanted to spend my 1L summer working abroad. One of the final slides of the PowerPoint presentation that day was a photo of a beach umbrella; the PILC counselor on stage quipped, “You can go ANYWHERE! Just don’t go sit on the beach all summer!” I think he was joking, but in a “No, really, we’re giving you this money, please don’t go sit on the beach” sort of tone. I heeded the advice and spent my summer working in Beijing, where I basked in pollution and smog rather than UV rays.

Escape to the beaches of Bali in under three hours

Studying in Singapore offers the opportunity to pursue a rigorous legal education… without sacrificing that beach umbrella. NUS students can take advantage of short, inexpensive flights to countless destinations across Asia; popular getaways in Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines are all easily accessible.  University-wide holidays such as Chinese New Year, a mid-semester recess week (Singapore’s version of spring break), and an additional reading week at the conclusion of classes offer plenty of opportunities to travel. So if you’re looking to spend your free time frolicking around Southeast Asia, then Singapore has that going for it, too… which is nice.

There’s even a bit of paradise on campus. I live in an apartment-style dormitory in the massive residential area of the NUS campus known as University Town. A few weeks ago, the school opened a brand new infinity pool for students just across the lawn from my residence hall. Even when you’re not traveling, you can still take in the sunshine and gaze out over the sprawling green campus below. After you finish reading all of those documents your professor left in your locker, of course.

On-campus infinity pool

My unsolicited advice to any prospective students or 1Ls who may be reading this: go abroad during your time at NYU. Although there’s still a lot that I miss about Manhattan, I am thoroughly enjoying my semester as an exchange student in Singapore. The international atmosphere, cultural diversity, and array of local cuisines all present a welcome change of pace. At the very least, my time here is helping me through the post-1L malaise that seems to afflict all law students. If you’re even the slightest bit interested in an international career, or if the prospect of three years of law school in the same place just sounds monotonous to you, then consider one of NYU Law’s many exchange programs or three new study-abroad options. Don’t worry, you can thank me later.

Photo by derfy

My loan money comes to me as digits in my bank account that decrease precipitously until the next semester’s refueling. I never see the money. It is almost irrelevant how much my housing, my tuition, my fees, my anything cost, because my school and my government assign me some arbitrary sum of numbers that I turn around and hand right back to the school or government or shopkeeper. It is like the money does not even exist, but it will follow me for 10 years after I graduate.

Loans are pretty scary; debt is stressful; money is generally problematic. Debt is carefully considered when deciding whether to go to law school at all.

As a friend recently pointed out, with tuition around $26,000 per 14-week semester, I paid $120 per class hour this year (this is $2.40 per minute; each class “hour” is a 50-minute segment). If we think of our money as paying for individual classes, it can get a little hectic. Miss a train and show up 10 minutes late for class? $25 gone. Professor goes off on a 20-minute tangent? $50 burned. Sleep in on Monday morning and miss two two-hour classes? $480 out the window. This is a little misleading, though; law school is more than class. Instead, it is better to think of myself paying for education. I remember from my economics classes that education is a good that benefits not only the students, but also the society they contribute to. Because of this effect, rational students should be willing to pay more for education than just its value to themselves personally.

I like to think of it differently, not that I am paying for my schooling but that my school is paying me. I like to pretend I am a bank that my school believes in. When a person deposits money in a savings account, she actually gives cash to the bank in exchange for a set of promises from the bank–both the ability to retrieve the cash when she wants it and an amount of interest the bank will pay her for the cash. In return, the bank gets cash to play with. Usually the bank then makes investments or loans that will earn a higher rate of interest than it must pay to the savings account holder. People give money to the bank that the bank earns more money on. It is good deal for the person and a great deal for the bank. Banks know how to invest, and the more money they can attract to their savings accounts, the happier they will be.

So, instead of seeing a loan as a giant weight I must carry, I think of myself as the bank. My school invests money in me, and I use their cash investment to make an even better investment with a greater return. Just like a savings account, I am given money to play with in exchange for a promise to pay interest and pay back the principal when requested. Education, then, is how I chose to play with my money.

It’s a small distinction, but it makes me feel more valuable and less financially fragile.

Lawyering is a required, year-long 1L course and is somewhat similar to many other law schools’ Legal Research and Writing courses, though they can hardly be considered equals! The Law School’s Lawyering Program gives students a practical look into the legal world and is staffed with incredible professors to do just that. Because of the small number of students in each Lawyering class, the professor and students have an opportunity to bond on a level much deeper than the likely one formed with other first-year teachers. The Lawyering professors, and even the TAs, serve as wonderful assets during what can be an immensely stressful first semester.

After this course, students walk away with myriad legal tools they can toss into their “skill” toolbox. Right off the bat, students enhance their public speaking skills by giving persuasive off-the-cuff arguments in front of other students. As frightening as it may be at the time, the experience you gain by doing so throughout the course is extremely valuable to your future career as a lawyer (or really any profession) and is nothing like getting cold-called!

More invaluable is the tremendous amount of time spent prepping students for composing and drafting legal briefs while stressing the importance of proper citation for case references. Equally valuable is the hands-on experience the students get with “clients,” played by the teaching assistants, in a professional setting.  Groups of first-years prepare, plan, and conduct an interview and counseling session with a potential client who has an issue that needs to be investigated in order to determine if a legal claim exists. Then, once the “attorneys” have looked into the situation, they must properly give her legal advice and guidance about the appropriate next step.

The course itself is laidback and enjoyable,  and working with classmates in such close quarters fosters the growth of new friendships. While you are encouraged to do well in order to develop necessary lawyering skills, the pressure to do so is relieved by the fact that the course is not factored into your GPA, unlike at other law schools. Instead of focusing on letter grades, professors tailor their teaching methods and feedback to the needs of each student to ensure significant improvements with every student submission. In addition, the course meets a few times a week throughout the semester, ending three weeks prior to finals to ensure ample time for studying.

All in all, the course embodies yet another valuable feature separating NYU Law from the rest of the pack.