Er, no one handwrites exams.

I am so old...

When I was in law school, I told people I wanted to go to law school because I wanted to learn about Law and the underpinnings of the Constitution. I also told them I was interested in the Philosophy of Law and that the degree was no different than getting a Phd. in History, Political Science and Philosophy which were my 2 majors and my "minor" except that there was more lucrative employment opportunities after graduation.

IF that didn't confuse them and shut them up, I explained that I would use the knowledge I gained and match that with the skills portion of law school to become a trial lawyer. I told them that because I liked all kinds of disparate types of law, I would not "Specialize" but that I intended to try all kinds of cases. I told them that trials were searches for justice and that can only be accomplished by the hardest working attorneys and that was who I would be; I also added that I intended to take on cases that changed life for my clients but would have a greater effect, it would change life for everyone.

In fact mostly I am a hard working attorney and i do try disparate types of cases and I take on cases that change my world. In the 28 years I've been at this, I have obtained rulings that declared loitering for the purpose of Prostitution unconstitutional, changed the way a jail handles prisoner complaints and forced a county to find gentler ways to treat handicapped prisoners.

I have forced a county police force to teach its employees how to take better notes and make better arrests, and I have helped to overturn NY's death penalty statute. I also have helped the Federal court to narrow the scope of certain civil rights violations so as not to dilute this important type of litigation. I have also forced a certain southern Federal circuit to begin providing early discovery in criminal cases on a regular basis.

I am presently trying to force a Union to stop discriminating against an Italian American who happens to have family that were allegedly members of organized crime, I am helping to write a code of ethics and standards for Immigration attorneys. We are forcing a major chain of drug stores to cease their abuse, humiliation and religious bias against Muslim Americans. I get to take on interesting cases because I do not take on work that bores me. I do not work for someone else, and I have made it known that I will look at cases other lawyers don't want or feel they cannot handle.


So next time someone asks, go tell them you want to belong to the most powerful force for good known to man. Tell them you want to be known as a person that bad people fear, and good people look to for protection. Go and tell them son, that you want to be a lawyer!

By the way, congratulations to all of you who finished exams, and to those that have gotten into Law School and to those that have found employment in law and finally to those of you who are toiling to learn to bring justice to others.
Merry Christmas, Happy New Year's and Happy Holidays to all.
AC

AC, I always enjoy and appreciate your posts, even though they make me feel like a total slacker. Happy Holidays to you too, and to everyone ITT.

Thanks Andy, and you are by far not a total slacker. Hope you are getting where you want to go. Call me if you want to chat.

I love your posts AC. Thanks for being the elder statesman of the thread!

You could try this:

"In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: the police who investigate crime and the district attorneys who prosecute the offenders."

Also, I don't know about you guys, but this TV show scene is what inspired me to become an attorney:

lol, I suppose us archaic Canadians are just catching up to the rest of the world.

i was just telling someone yesterday that in 3 years of law school ive never seen anyone hand write an exam

There was a ~45-year-old in my 1L class. He hand-wrote his exams. Only other examples I know of handwritten exams stem from unfortunate and untimely computer malfunctions.

hmm. There have been hand-writers for every exam I've done so far. One, I know, doesn't have a laptop, but some others do and just seem to prefer it. One guy had an untimely computer malfunction last semester and just didn't want to deal with the potential stress from that situation and chose to write all exams out from that point forward. I've also been forced to hand-write an exam but it was MC and short answer, so no biggy.

Do ya'll use ExamSoft or something else? Not really sure how common it is, just curious.

Yeah, ExamSoft at IU.

neither the school i attended 1L year nor georgetown uses examsoft. just honor code.

just wait until you guys take teh bar exam.

there will 100% be someone you know who's computer malfunctions or whatever either right before or during the exam, so they have to hand write.

you can just sense how bad everyone feels for that one person.

friend of mine was taking the bar in NY, and some chick knocked my friends computer off the table, breaking it. she had to handwrite every day of exam.

not fun

I handwrote the bar exam in 2007 because I forgot to register as a computer exam-taker or whatever in time. I'd say it was about 80/20 computers/handwriters, so I wasn't alone.

yeah, but it's one thing going into the exam knowing you're going to handwrite. it's a completely different thing to expect to type and then have to write, especially when your hand isn't ready for it. it sucks

Penn has a bunch of spare laptops on hand for these occasions I think, I can't imagine having to do this.

I don't understand, I mean, you can just hammer it to his door anyway and he's served, at least here in Texas. You can't just actively avoid service. Even if you just left it on the ground, the process server is going to put "threw papers at defendant, told him he had been served" on an affidavit and he's effectively served. He's only hurting himself if he ignores it.

I handwrote my goddamn bar exam. I have terrible handwriting too.

My property exam was handwritten. God that was awful. My handwriting is terrible and after 4 hours I never wanted to write again.

I'm talking about the bar exam, not school exam.

how bad is it if you got totally hammered at the office party by accident?

**** Examsoft for crashing my laptop 1.5 hours into my first ever law school exam. **** Examsoft **BAR EDITION** for making you pay again for the exact same software.

Wowzors at "honor code", people would be bitching to high heaven and ratting each other out like mad at my school if that was going on.

i sat in the last row during a closed book final and saw at about 6-8 people nonchalantly cheating throughout the exam, opening up outlines and whatnot.

Haven't posted on here in a minute (black Friday/during 1l spring semester). Surviving law school so far.

I write super small and really close. Only law school exams I have hand wrote are evidence and criminal law. I figure I will never be able to hand write the bar so I might as well get used to typing (never typed an exam until 1L).

And exam soft and the new mac OS had people in panic for the first week of finals b/c of crazy crashes, I'm sure they fixed it quick but it was hilarious.