This blog is about my academic experiences as a law student; but not everyone who reads it is going to be familiar with this mysterious world. As such there might be terms of art that I use (like term of art) that need some defining. To help bridge the gap, here is the first entry in an ongoing Law School Dictionary!
Law School: A paradise of intellectual expansion or the third circle of academic hell, depending on the week or even the class.
The Bar: Capital B, the scariest test most of us pray to only have to take once; the test that makes you a lawyer, by granting you permission to practice the law in a state.
The bar: Lowercase b, a drinking establishment; the place where most lawyer jokes that talk about 'the bar' end up being about; where most of us go when we think too much about the big B Bar, or finals, or classes, or how much money we're spending, or how much time we're spending, or how we haven't seen our loved ones in so long...
AA: Alcoholics Anonymous. Which some days feels like it should be Attorneys Anonymous, or Alcoholic Attorneys. Could be AAA (Alcoholic Attorneys Anonymous), but we wouldn't be very good attorneys if we were advocating copyright infringement.
1L/2L/3L: Your year in law school, i.e. a 1L is in their first year. A student may also be a 'rising' 2 or 3L, in that they have finished their last year but not yet started classes of the next year.
Civ. Pro: Civil Procedure, the class that teaches you how to sue someone, i.e. how a civil case goes through the courts and the restrictions and requirements of those steps.
Crim. Pro.: Criminal Procedure. Civ Pro for the felon set.
Journal: Law Journal. Every school has one, it looks good on the resume, and it runs the gamut from 'fiercely competitive' to 'Klingon promotion'. And no, Klingon promotion isn't the next item. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/KlingonPromotion
Moot Court: A mock trial competition set at the appellate level. Looks great on the resume. For competitiveness, see 'Journal'.
Con Law: Constitutional Law. The class in which you realize that even the Supreme Court doesn't always know what the hell the Constitution says, and watch as your notions about the efficacy of our system evaporate like dust in the wind.
Dust in the Wind: A song by Kansas. Nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky.
Externship: Apparently this is new to a lot of folks. An externship is like an internship, but you get paid in college credit and have to pay for it like a regular class. Contrast an internship, where you're not paying and may or may not be paid yourself.
J.D.: Juris Doctor, the first professional law degree in the United States. I.e. the goal. Depending on who you ask may or may not entitle the possessor to the style of 'Doctor'; the ABA says it does as long as you're not falsely advertising medical knowledge, the consensus in Europe is 'Haha, stupid Americans'. America is unique in that the first professional degree for law is a Doctorate and the second degree (i.e. the one you get if you want to go into a more academic study) is a Masters. After the JD you can get an LLM (Legum Magister or Master of Laws) followed by an SJD (Scientiae Juridicae Doctoris, or Master of the Science of Laws) to focus on academic principals, similar to how other fields get a masters and then PhD; many schools also offer an LLM program for foreign trained lawyers who want to practice in the U.S. So if you're really dedicated you can in fact have two doctorates in law. For some reason.
LLB: Bachelors of Laws or Legum Baccalaureate. What most other countries get, an undergraduate degree in law followed by some licensing classes.
'A Lunch': A free lunch provided by someone in return for listening to them. Law students may go to lunch together but this is not having 'a lunch'. In the law school sense, asking 'Do we have a lunch today' is a way of saying 'Is someone going to feed us Papa Johns Pizza or sub sandwiches today to listen to their talk'.
Torts: A class involving civil infractions you can sue for. Includes negligence, which will bring up discussion of the McDonalds coffee case. Which was totally legitimate, and if you really want to know why I'll blog about it; but for god's sake stop using that as your example of frivolous lawsuits, because it wasn't. Torts is divided broadly into two sections: Intentional Torts, and Negligence.
This concludes today's lecture. Be sure to review your notes for next week's test...just kidding, the only test in law school is the final.
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