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Navigating Law School - They Don't Teach You That In Law School

Episode 352 • 13th November 2024 • Lawyer Talk: Off the Record • Stephen E. Palmer - Attorney At Law

>> Steve Palmer: All right, here we are.lawyer talk podcast.com. law School Edition. They don't teach you that in Law School Edition. And, you know, I'm gonna. You know, what we've been doing here, just to give everybody a little bit of background, I have been, uh, taking my. These law students, my law clerk, and we have Bella, and we're gonna introduce you guys a little bit more detail because I maybe neglected to do an episode like this. But what we've been doing is we've been taking questions from law students, uh, and then I'm trying to give them a real world application of the issue, so whatever it is. And, you know, I do criminal defense work upstairs at Palmer Legal Defense. So, uh, when you do criminal defense, you tend to have, uh, you're in the trenches. I've been in the trenches for almost 30 years, and when I started my career, I took on almost any type of matter you could think of, whether it would be, uh, domestic, whether it would be, uh, some sort of stupid civil lawsuit against somebody, because I wanted to learn everything there is to learn. And over the years, you develop a pretty real world, uh, approach at these legal issues. And it dawned on me that they don't teach you that stuff in Law School. They can't, because a lot of times the professors have never actually done any real world law practice. And that's fine. Um, and it's just the context of Law School just doesn't create that. It just doesn't. They just don't teach it. It's just not there. Um, but I wanted to take a few minutes today anyway and at least introduce my law students, you know, introduce you guys. So, Troy, um, you've been. First of all, we've got Troy Henriksen. There's no D in there, right? Nope. You're not Jimi Henrickson. No. You are Troy Henriksen, and you are a law student. Where, uh, do you go to Law School?

>> Troy Henriksen: Capital Law school.

>> Steve Palmer: And what year are you in?

nt there in. What year is it?: 2024

>> Steve Palmer: All right, so 2L. This is fancy talk, folks. So that just means he's in his second year. So 2L, meaning law student. So 1L is your first year, 2L is your second year, and 3L, I presume, is your third year. Yep. And is there a 4? Hopefully not.

>> Troy Henriksen: Um, there is, but, you know, nobody wants to be. Well, there's some people who take the evening program, and then they end up being 4L's by calendar, but there's some people who do a three year program and end up being a 4L. The school's hard if you do part Time.

>> Bella Mata: You have to do four years if you're part Time.

>> Steve Palmer: Yeah. So I went to Law School at Kaplan University. It was the Law and Graduate center back then. And I did it mostly at night, but I finished in three years. You were still allowed to do that back then. But look, I want to. Why? You, uh, know, Law School is an interesting. When I started Law School, truth, uh, be told, I had some interest in being a lawyer, but there wasn't a whole lot of options coming out of a liberal arts school in Ohio with a history degree. You know, I could maybe go try to be a teacher, or I could go to grad school. Those are my options. And I chose Law School. Um, but it was cheaper. It was easier financially, uh, to deal with that back in those days. So, uh, tell us. Talk to me about the cost and how you fund it.

>> Troy Henriksen: You want to lead off here?

>> Steve Palmer: Well, what's interesting, if Bella's going to start, so. Bella, we have Bella, who is also. Are you also the 2L.

>> Bella Mata: Yes, I am.

>> Steve Palmer: At Capital University.

>> Bella Mata: At Capital, yes.

>> Steve Palmer: All right, so tell me, what's, uh, the cost structure now for Law School?

>> Bella Mata: Um, I'm gonna be totally honest. My parents do, uh, pay for my schooling.

>> Steve Palmer: Look, you're fortunate enough.

>> Bella Mata: I am very blessed.

>> Steve Palmer: Nothing to be ashamed of, just thankful.

>> Bella Mata: Yes. So, um, but I want to say our tuition a year is. It's a private university, so it might be around like 40.

>> Troy Henriksen: I think it's. I think it's 20,000 and some change a semester and per semester.

>> Steve Palmer: And there's two semesters a year. So you're 40 grand a year?

>> Bella Mata: Yes, but they, they do give a lot of money off.

>> Troy Henriksen: Yeah. Yeah. So a lot of people start off with scholars. Um, I start off with a nice one. And there's two main ones that they do. There's one where it's like five grand off and another where it's like ten grand off. So, like, when I started, it was semester per semester.

>> Steve Palmer: Yes.

>> Troy Henriksen: So when I started, my first year was $10,000 each semester.

>> Steve Palmer: Right. Well, that's a manageable.

>> Bella Mata: That's around how mine was.

>> Steve Palmer: Yeah. Are you allowed to work your first year in Law School? Uh, I know there's a night program.

>> Bella Mata: I think you are. I know med school, you can't work. And same with dental school, but I'm pretty sure you're allowed to in Law School if it fits into your schedule.

>> Steve Palmer: I don't I think you may not be right about that. At least when I finished. So, uh, my first year I could do. I pretty sure either work was discouraged or I wasn't allowed to work at all. But I think by the Time I graduated, they weren't letting first years. I don't know how they not let you. I guess if they find out, they kick you out. Um, but I was working anyway. I would go between classes and I would figure out a way to hustle some money.

>> Troy Henriksen: They strongly discourage it, but it's really hard with how they do the schedule because it's like, hey, can I work just this two hour window during this day and all that. It's a lot harder where you're two hour. Like right now I'm only in class two days a week, so it's a lot easier to work. So I can, I can go work Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, but I'm also in class Monday, Wednesday for nine hours.

>> Bella Mata: So it's like kind of like 1L year we had class five days a week, so it would be hard to keep a job.

>> Steve Palmer: It's brutal and it's like you got a deer in headlights, man. You're just like, you're just. It's like an onslaught of stuff you've never dealt with. Um, you know, I remember Law School. I remember thinking Law School is really about you learn a vocabulary first about what is going on and uh, or what these, what is, how's the system works and what's the vocabulary. And once you have the vocabulary, then it starts to click a little bit. But, uh, so what kind of hours were you putting in your first year in Law School?

>> Troy Henriksen: I think the rule is you're supposed to do one in the classroom, two in the afternoon.

>> Steve Palmer: I forget about the rules.

>> Troy Henriksen: So the reality was I was, I didn't do it right at all the first year. And in my head it was like, I can cram. And when I say cram, usually in undergrad it was like the night before. But in Law School, obviously I gave myself more Time. I was like, I can cram the last three weeks before exams. Flashcards, like doing 12 hours a day. Like the minute the library opened to, the minute it closed at a minimum 12 hours. And I could do that for three weeks. I thought that was enough. Grades weren't terrible, but I realized that you need to do more spaced repetition on the actual studying and do it all throughout. Like three weeks was not enough. Um, so during the first couple weeks I wouldn't do honestly a lot of reading or Studying on my own Time. Mostly just the cases, like, reading. Like, I'd watch videos, like Quimby videos on them, and they, like, break down the cases really well for you. Give you, like, the whole day.

>> Steve Palmer: Thought about that. See, we didn't have that.

>> Bella Mata: You need Quimby in Law School.

>> Steve Palmer: We had, uh, Gilberts and legal Lines and maybe some, like, horn books and stuff that we would have to go read to understand the analysis of the case. But I remember just reading, uh, a case, and immediately they're using procedural words like mandamus or something. And I have no idea what the hell that Word meant. I had to go to my Black's Law dictionary, look up that word, and then go back, and then I would get to another one. I would do that, and then I would go back and I just decided that's what I was going to do until it all started to click. Um, and it happened pretty quickly. I mean, once you. Once you get into. It's like learning a foreign language. Once you sort of catch the routine, you can learn it. You guys both looked at each other like, that was crazy. Why would you do something like that?

>> Bella Mata: I give a lot of people who went to Law School around your time, like, a lot of credit because they have a lot of, uh, study tools that help us.

>> Steve Palmer: Well, you have YouTube.

>> Troy Henriksen: Well, yeah. Another thing I just think is crazy is you've talked about upstairs is going to the law library and looking up a case. If I didn't have the databases that we have now, where I want to focus on just this head note where it's a Fourth Amendment issue on somebody, like getting their car searched on it, and they'll, boom. Here's all the cases related to that.

>> Bella Mata: Where you actually have to go through Lexus. And they even added this, like, AI tool in Lexus, which I was kind of surprised because they're so, like, concerned about everyone using AI in school. But now it. It makes it so much easier.

>> Steve Palmer: Yeah, I mean, Lexus was an AI tool when I started. I mean, that was like the.

>> Bella Mata: Oh, I didn't. I mean, well, I know that we.

>> Steve Palmer: Didn'T use the term AI.

>> Bella Mata: Oh.

>> Steve Palmer: But the thought of being able to type into a computer interface and get a search back, I mean, that was, like, mind blowing at the Time. I think we had an immediate subscription to Westlaw or Lexis or both, I think, as law students as soon as it came out. And it might have been like my first or second year, um, but we still had to learn to go to the library and look up stuff in the dicennials, do you guys even know what those are?

>> Troy Henriksen: No.

>> Steve Palmer: No, so. Or like, uh, we would. So dicennials, you would go look up a topic or use west key numbers. So you get a topic like Search and Seizure, and it would have a key number, and then you'd go to the West Books, and they would have key numbers, and then you would get a bunch of blurps on all the cases that match that key number. And then you can start going from there. I mean, it was work. It was legal research. We had to learn how to do it. And to some extent, it was better. Because when you. When you're doing it that way, I don't want to call it better, but it had its benefits, I'll say. Because when you do it that way. And Troy, you're sort of learning this a little bit upstairs. When you actually have to read it and then sort of cross reference something, uh, and it's not just flashing across your screen. Uh, you learn it. You actually learn it. You know, the process of doing somehow translates to mastery of the material. And you're sort of doing that by. We do an appellate blog upstairs, and he looks at all the cases every week that come out in the Ohio Bar Association. And once you start having to match things up and figure it out, you learn it. And I think to some extent, when I do a search on legal research now on Westlaw or Lexis or whatever I use, it just comes up and you scan through stuff, and it's hard to keep track of it all. But, uh, maybe I just am arcane.

>> Troy Henriksen: No, I mean, that's kind of how the AI aspect of Lexis kind of feels right now. Um, especially when we were working up there and we were going over some of the AI summaries, and we were catching them, like, wrong right on the spot. And I was like, this is kind of crazy. They give just very vague cases on an issue that we need something more specific on. And it kind of. It kind of drives me crazy. I use AI More now on the Lexus to get me in the right direction, because then I start looking. It, uh, gets me to the vague, the general case, and then. All right, now take me to the citing decisions. And now this is where I can start pinpointing head notes to the cases that actually, like, pertain closer to ours. That's what I like to do on it. And the green Book does help. The problem with the green Book is, I want to say, like, nine out of 10 of those cases are almost like, don't really matter. But when there is one that does matter, it hits very hard.

>> Steve Palmer: So you're talking about the Green Book is the Ohio Bar Association publishes. We used to get that Book in the mail every week. And it was like, uh, they call them advanced sheets or whatever. And you would get a reporter that had all the sort of significant decisions or the things that would, the decisions that would be reported. You would get. And I would read the COVID of the Green Book and it would have the case summaries, little blurps like headnotes. Um, and then if you, if you liked what you read or you wanted to read more, you would open up the Book and you would actually read the case. And you know, a lot of lawyers like notoriously have those things stacked to the, in the corners because eventually you'll get to them. Of course you never did. Um, but now we keep up with that online. It's just an email that we get. But what he's talking about. Bella. We had a case and this was my. One of my first experiences with AI legal research. Meaning we just, we just, I think we probably just talked into it or said, hey, tell us what the issue is. We have this. It was a confrontation issue, meaning, uh, we wanted to. We were doing an appeal and the defense was prevented from cross examining a witness on a certain topic. And Troy spoke in or typed into, uh, my AI program what it would be. And uh, it gave us a summary, like a really interesting summary, like the cited case law. I couldn't have written any better. And then I thought there was a. In my. I don't know if it was made national news, but in my world it made some news where some lawyers were sanctioned because they relied on AI and it was just flat out wrong. I said, well, we better look these cases up. It couldn't have been more opposite.

>> Troy Henriksen: It was crazy.

>> Steve Palmer: They just, it absolutely screwed it up.

>> Bella Mata: Wow.

>> Steve Palmer: Uh, it was just wrong. It was wrong. And I think the other thing, the other problem I've seen with AI is that first of all, you don't learn how to write unless you write.

>> Bella Mata: Mhm.

>> Steve Palmer: So if you're letting a computer write for you, you're not learning the art of legal writing. And not only the art, like the art, the really artistic form of legal writing where you turn it into an argument so it's not just what is being said, but then you turn that into an argument. Like go read Scalia's decisions out of the U.S. supreme Court. Like he could write or he had people under him that could write. Probably both. Um, and if you just rely on AI you'll never learn that. You just won't. Um, and the other danger of it is. And Troy, you're sort of getting this. When you dig into a case based on the facts that we have in the case that you're reading, you start to see these sort of unwritten parallels. You know, it's like there's a. I don't know, there are cosmic connections to things that you can start to draw or distinctions that you can make, or you can say, all right, well, I know who that guy, or I know that court, and I know what was going on there. And, uh, I don't think AI really exposes that yet or reveals that stuff yet. Yeah, but it's a tool.

>> Bella Mata: I could see that.

>> Steve Palmer: Yeah, it's a tool. But anyway, so back to your first years. I mean, uh, you're spending. Did you actually spend two hours for every one hour?

>> Bella Mata: No.

>> Steve Palmer: Crickets.

>> Troy Henriksen: No, we get crickets.

>> Steve Palmer: We get crickets in the very middle.

>> Bella Mata: M. I kind of did the same as Troy. I'm really good at cramming and memorizing everything right before an exam. I know it's not the best strategy, but it works well with. For me. I don't know why. If I try to, like. And I will try to, like, weekly go over my stuff, like what I learned, just to recap it. I don't know if I just have a horrible memory, but it will be out of my brain by the next class. I don't know if we just learn so much in class that, uh, I just can't hold it all, but. M. Yeah, I'm a lot better at cramming, and I think that works well for me. I wouldn't advise that, though.

>> Steve Palmer: So Law School, man. It's been a long time since I've talked to people wanting. Or in Law School or wanting to go to Law School. But, you know, it's not about memorizing. My recollection is that there's a lot of stuff to memorize, but to me, it was learning it. And once you learned it, you don't have to memorize it. It doesn't have to stick on the ceiling very long if you've learned it, if you know it, which is really what we're saying is Law School is not about memorizing what the law is. It's about learning how everything works, what the arguments are. And there is some law. Like in your first year, you learn what a contract is, you learn what a tort is, you learn what, um, we talked about it last week you learn what murder is or the definitions of certain crimes. And I guess there is some memorization there, but I felt like I didn't have to memorize it once I learned how to apply it. Then you just know. And then you know, you'd be arguing this or you'd be arguing that. A classic Law School exam has no right answers. Right. Generally, I mean, some professors had. We used to have multiple guessers. Actually we had one professor, he was great. Um, it was Professor Distal Horse. He subsequently passed away. But he was phenomenal. And he would have these matching where you actually literally like second grade, draw a line to the terms that match. And it was, it was tricky. But most of them were essays where you're just, you're given a set of facts and you have to analyze it. And I learned quickly that you just write out a decision like you would read in court. So here's what, uh, here's what the facts are. Here's what the one side is arguing. Here's what the other side is arguing. Here's what the legal rule is. Um, there's a minority position to the legal rule. So most people would say that the legal rule is this. Some courts will say that the legal rule is this. And then you just get to pick one and as long as you support it, you're fine. Um, and once I caught on to that, then it was easy.

>> Bella Mata: Mhm.

>> Troy Henriksen: Yeah. I feel like when we say the cramming of flashcarding, it's not like memorizing the terms. The flashcards are a lot more in depth. It'll be. Here's just the general term, here's the elements and here's a flashcard then for each element. Arguments.

>> Steve Palmer: Elements of a torque.

>> Troy Henriksen: Well, depends on the tort, I guess.

>> Steve Palmer: There's one.

>> Troy Henriksen: Um, let's go with. I know, let's go with um. I feel like assault or battery. It's like the. There has to be a contact has, um. To have a battery.

>> Steve Palmer: No, there could be. Anyway, go ahead.

>> Troy Henriksen: No, I think. Is it battery or assault? Assault requires actually physical contact.

>> Steve Palmer: Battery requires a contact.

>> Troy Henriksen: Battery requires the contact. There has to be like an intent, um, and then actually has to cause harm. I don't know if it has to be physical or if it has to be like. If emotional harm also. But I'm pretty sure there's a fourth one I'm missing there. There's like four elements to it. I'm pretty sure.

>> Bella Mata: M. I thought it was three.

>> Troy Henriksen: Is that three?

>> Steve Palmer: I'm gonna send this episode over to captain, they don't remember.

>> Troy Henriksen: Molina's gonna like, come over there and fight me. I'm like, sorry.

>> Steve Palmer: My point of asking that is that's the crap you got to memorize. M. You have to memorize what these elements are to some extent and then be able to apply them to a factual scenario. But the secret is you don't really need to have that stuff memorized beyond Law School. You just have to know that you can look up the elements of a, ah, civil assault. And then that's where the magic is. You have to be able to craft some theory that fits in the case you're working on. Um, so a contract, for instance, um, or the negligence claim, duty, breach, causation, damages, you know, now you sort of know. And then you've got to figure out where the negligence is, what was the duty, and then you can sort of, uh, you can backfill it in, but you can always look up that stuff. You just have to know that you have to look it up and you have to be able to spot the issues, and that's the trick. So I think what you're talking about is cramming to memorize that kind of crap because you have to be able to do it to pass the exam, but you don't necessarily have to have that when you finish Law School.

>> Bella Mata: I think it's more so like the smaller issues that we have to remember more so for like Civ Pro, all those rules we had to memorize, you know, that's where, like, the flashcards definitely.

>> Troy Henriksen: Help, but that feels more like memorization rather than like application just memorizing the rules.

>> Bella Mata: But I get what you're saying with torts, definitely the rule.

>> Steve Palmer: So what's happened? And it used to be Law School was all common law. We talked a little bit about this. You couldn't just look in a Book and see what the rule, like what the rules are. It was how we've always done it. So you have to know what the case law is to know what the rules are. And now there's like a. There's. There's a code or a rule Book. You can just look it up. But you. Again, you have to know that you have to look it up. And if you don't know that there's an issue out there, then you're going to miss it. And I. Rules. And you guys, have you guys had evidence yet?

>> Troy Henriksen: No.

>> Bella Mata: Next semester.

>> Troy Henriksen: Next semester.

>> Steve Palmer: All right, so evidence. I, uh, when I teach people evidence, I tell them, memorize the freaking rules. Memorize them. Not just what they say, the number and the subsection, memorize it, then you can learn them. And then once you learn them, you can learn how to apply them. And once you learn how to apply them, you can learn how to break them and get away with it in a courtroom. As a trial lawyer, you've got to learn the rules of evidence. You've got to learn how they fit together. And the only way to do that is just to jump in and start memorizing them. People hate to hear that because it sucks. It's hard work, but there's a few things like that that I think you do have to memorize. But anyway, I'm talking, and I'm supposed to let you guys talk. So what's you get done with your first year? Um, what's the second year like?

>> Troy Henriksen: I think it kind of starts over the. I want to say it starts in January. Your first year. OCI's open up. Which is.

>> Steve Palmer: What is OCI?

>> Troy Henriksen: I don't know what the acronym stands for, but it's. Law firms will come in and do interviews on, uh, the campus.

>> Steve Palmer: Right there on campus. Interview.

>> Troy Henriksen: Ah. Ah, there we go. Crack the code there. So you start applying because a lot of people do want to work your first summer, but they also tell you it's optional. There's a lot of people I'd almost go with. I would say half don't even work their first summer.

>> Bella Mata: I didn't.

>> Troy Henriksen: It's.

>> Steve Palmer: You didn't?

>> Troy Henriksen: Yeah, it's just a lot of them just don't. They tell you it's optional. And a lot of them I talked to, they're like, I just want to take the first summer off. I mean, it's a new experience. The whole first year of Law School, they want to take a break. And I understand that. Um, but I feel like I learned better with experience and actually working at an office. I learned a ton this summer that I feel like I gained more this summer than the whole year at Law School.

>> Steve Palmer: What you're doing is what we're talking about. You're taking the theoretical approach. I mean, it's really what we're talking about at this podcast. You take the theoretical stuff that you're learning in Law School, and then you get to see how it fits into the world, how it fits into the actual world with real cases in a real business, because, you know, I can't afford all this fancy AI stuff in a small law practice. I, uh, have to do it ad hoc when I need it. And, you know, so it's. And that is My beef with Lexus, Westlaw is they give it to you for free. It's like, look, no secret what I do for a living. I represent people charged with crimes. Lots of those. At least it used to be lots of those were dope dealers. And the first thing a dope dealer does, it gives you a first hit for free, Right? So you get you addicted. So you get your first hit free of Lexus and Westlaw with all the bells and whistles. That would be like 1,500amonth, what you guys get for free.

>> Bella Mata: Really? I didn't know it was that much.

>> Steve Palmer: Maybe less. But think 1,000 bucks a month.

>> Bella Mata: Wow.

>> Steve Palmer: For the full array of those products. It's insane. It is insane. And they have small law firm deals, but it's not anything close to what you're getting. Uh, what did I do after my first. I did work after my first year. I had buddies that were landscape. Just got landscaping jobs or whatever. Um, I had buddies that didn't need to work for whatever reason. So they didn't. But I guess it all depends. Um, but the second year, they used to say the first year they scare you to death. The second year, they work you to death. Does that still hold true?

>> Troy Henriksen: I would kind of agree with that because I feel like the BARS exam, I mean, bar classes, your first year are not the hard ones. It's more like introduction. But then the second year, I feel like all the bar classes we take are the hardest ones because they kind of. They figured out, uh, you know, what you're doing here to some extent. So now we're going to give you the spice, and we're going to see if you can handle the spice. At the same time. A lot of people are now in work. So I feel like a lot of these people are working for the first time in their lives. They've never had a job. And now they have to juggle the spiciest bar classes while maintaining a job. And it's kind of like. It's just a whole new shock again for them. I don't know how you feel about it.

>> Bella Mata: Yeah, I would agree. I feel like everyone was saying, like, you just got to get through 1L year. 1L year. And now all I'm hearing is 2L, uh, year. And I. I definitely think 2L year is a lot harder than your 1L year, I think. So I think our midterms or, uh, we're in some different classes, but I felt like my midterms, all the information on it was like, what would have been on the final last year. It's just. They give you, like, double the workload, so it's harder.

>> Steve Palmer: Meaning you're working harder.

>> Bella Mata: Yeah. The material itself isn't necessarily, like, harder to understand, but the workload is definitely a lot more.

>> Steve Palmer: Presumably by your second year, you already know the vocabulary. So when somebody's talking about. I mean, look, you know, they don't teach us this stuff in undergrad, let alone half the Time in Law School. Like, you're. You're just. You walk into this with no understanding of the legal system. And I remember I didn't really under. I couldn't articulate the difference between suing somebody in a criminal case. Like, I didn't know. Plaintiff, defendant. What's a defendant? Who's. You know, you don't know those simple things when you go to. When you start Law School. So it's scary. It's like you're just. You're just thrown into this world with a different vocabulary, a different language, and you're expected to know it. And then. Do they still make you stand up and answer questions and recite stuff, pick on you?

>> Troy Henriksen: They don't make a stand.

>> Bella Mata: We don't have to stand. But we do get called.

>> Steve Palmer: In the old days, they did. Um, so it's scary. You're on the spot. You're scared. You don't know what the hell you're talking about. Then you get exposed, and you feel stupid. All the emotions were there, so it sounds like it is true in the second year, they're just working you to death.

>> Bella Mata: Mm.

>> Troy Henriksen: But the whole picking the name, some of them is kind of fun. It's kind of like a roulette. They have, like, a little deck of flashcards with their name, and you just see them flip up there. All of a sudden, they're like, all right, Troy. Like, oh, shoot, now I'm on the spot for the whole class. Here we go. And. Yeah, so it's a nice little surprise.

>> Bella Mata: I feel like everyone's nervous about that, going into Law School. Whenever people ask me about Law School, that's, like, the number one thing they think of is the cold calling. You get used to it. Yeah, Like, I'm not really. Everyone's, like, messed up. A cold call.

>> Troy Henriksen: Yeah. Or at least I have.

>> Steve Palmer: Um.

>> Bella Mata: It's really not embarrassing. Everyone's in the same boat.

>> Steve Palmer: Uh, it's part of the education.

>> Bella Mata: I understand why they do it.

>> Steve Palmer: It makes sense, but this is it. I mean, uh, they're not doing it, and I'm glad to hear that it's still happening. Because I think for a while it was unpopular, because we don't want to hurt anybody's feelings or embarrass anybody or do whatever. But it's part of the education, and it teaches you how to think on your feet. It teaches you how to answer questions when you have no idea what the Answers are, um, and then use your deductive reasoning to get through it. Um, or it teaches you how to say, I just don't know what the hell I'm talking about. And there's a lesson there, too. Uh, and I think that is a valuable part of the education. M. They call it the Socratic method, because it is designed to get you, the student, to find the answer on your own through probing questions. That's what Socrates did. If you go read his dialogues, that's where it comes from. Or Plato's dialogues, talking about his conversations with Socrates. But that is. There's some value in that. And it uses that muscle in your brain that you would never use otherwise. Not in med school, not in MBA school. Nowhere else are you trained to exercise that muscle and develop it, to deduce things, um, that you otherwise would have no idea about just by a question that's asked you. I mean, it's sort of, ah, you know, they give you a little. They breadcrumb it all the way to the end, and it really creates. You're going to leave Law School with those tools and those foundations that you can apply everywhere. My dad was a law professor, and he used to say it's the best education around, because as a lawyer, I can do what, uh, you're doing. Maybe not as well, Mr. MBA, maybe not as well. Um, Mr. Accountant. Um, I can do what you're doing, um, but you can't do what I'm doing because you have to go get a law degree. You have to pass. And I guess for an accountant, you have to do that still, too. But I talk to my accountant all the Time on his level, but he can't do it on my level. And I'm not saying my level's superior. I don't mean that. Just we learned a way to think and a way to learn that he didn't have to learn. So now you guys are, what, halfway through your second years?

>> Troy Henriksen: Yes.

>> Steve Palmer: What classes you taking?

>> Bella Mata: We're in Constitutional law, civil, um, procedure. Um, I'm in business associations. You're not.

>> Troy Henriksen: I'm not in business associations. I came conclusion. I'm not taking that either. It's not mandatory to set anymore.

>> Bella Mata: So hard.

>> Steve Palmer: Yeah, BA Is hard.

>> Bella Mata: It is I don't know if it's because I have never taken a business class in my entire life.

>> Steve Palmer: So it's just like corporations.

>> Bella Mata: Yeah, pretty much.

>> Steve Palmer: Well, and shareholder suits.

>> Bella Mata: Yeah.

>> Steve Palmer: Yeah. The ultra vires doctrine.

>> Bella Mata: Yes, we did learn that. Yes. Um, it's the hardest class I've ever taken in my entire life.

>> Steve Palmer: Piercing the corporate veil.

>> Bella Mata: Yes. That was traumatizing. No, just kidding. But, yeah, it is really, really hard. I think it's. I just don't have a business background at all. There's, like, guys in the class who were like, business majors in undergrad, and I didn't even know what equity was going into this class. So, yeah, it was definitely rough, but we're getting through it.

>> Steve Palmer: Equity is such a ubiquitous term in law. So we hear people throw around equity in a political sense. Like, we're going to go give equity, making everybody equal, and call DEI stuff. Equity. Um, and then there's equity in a company.

>> Bella Mata: Yeah, that's what you're talking about. That's what I'm talking about.

>> Steve Palmer: I have an interest. I have a shareholder interest in the company. I hold equity in the company. Um, and then there's equity, like injustice, meaning, um, like specific enforcement of a contract versus just paying off damages. So, you know, be careful with that term is what I'm saying.

>> Bella Mata: Yeah.

>> Steve Palmer: It's a term of art.

>> Bella Mata: That is true.

>> Steve Palmer: That applies in different ways. So constitutional law, I think. I think if they taught that class to everybody in undergrad, I don't think you could teach it like making people read Supreme Court cases, but you could teach con law in a. I don't want to say dumbed down in a non, um, Law School setting. I think our entire society would be better because it gives you the history and context of everything that happens in our country. And frankly, what makes our country awesome is because you've learned the Constitution, you've learned the separation of powers, you learn judicial review and what, uh, the government is trying to do and what it can't do. And there's awesome political stories behind it all. But I'm gonna ask you, I mean, is it a whole year class? Right. Con law.

>> Bella Mata: What was that?

>> Steve Palmer: Constitutional law is an entire year.

>> Bella Mata: Yes. Well, yeah, it is. You take Con Law 1 and then Con Law 2, but yeah.

>> Steve Palmer: All right. So what are your thoughts on it? I mean, it was my favorite class. One of them, anyway. I hated the professor, but it was one of my favorite topics to learn.

>> Troy Henriksen: I think I'll have to agree with you. So I don't hate our professor. Um, it's just if they had to put the most monotone, boring. Um, I don't want to dog on him. Too bad now, man.

>> Bella Mata: He's a really great guy. He's really sweet.

>> Troy Henriksen: Yes, that is good.

>> Bella Mata: How you would put your.

>> Steve Palmer: You just put your con law professor in the friend zone.

>> Bella Mata: How you would picture a Law School.

>> Steve Palmer: I don't like him, but he's really sweet. I would never date him.

>> Troy Henriksen: I mean, like, if he. If he was like, you know, if you. Do you guys want to get a beer or something? I'd be like, oh, yeah, sure. Uh, do you want me to teach you constitutional law? I'd be like, whoa, hold on. Like, no, I prefer not, actually. So that's where I would draw the.

>> Steve Palmer: Line on make that class awesome. You could watch a YouTube video on Marbury versus Madison. I mean, just the first case we read. Yeah, it's awesome. It did really fascinating history behind the scenes on that. Um, you can make it really cool.

>> Troy Henriksen: Quimby does a great job on all of them.

>> Steve Palmer: What is Quimby?

>> Bella Mata: Oh, Quimby's amazing.

>> Troy Henriksen: So Quimby is like, imagine it's YouTube. Okay. But it's just for law cases. That's it. It's totally tailored completely to that. I pay for it. It's like $30 a month.

>> Bella Mata: Best $30 in my life.

>> Troy Henriksen: Yeah, it's amazing. So when I go to the case, like, I'll type in Marlborough, Madison, and it brings up a video. You can watch 10 minute video on it. It has the holding, has the legal question. It has the fact pattern, the history behind it.

>> Steve Palmer: Like the midnight judges.

>> Troy Henriksen: Yeah, yeah. It has all that you can. It goes through everything for you and.

>> Bella Mata: It gets like, right to the point, like what you're trying to get from the case. And it puts videos up there and it's like animated videos. It puts it into, like, simple terms. Like very, very simple.

>> Steve Palmer: It's. Well, see, that's good. But, uh, you know, but here's the thing. You're depressed. Depriving yourselves of the opportunity to learn how to. One of my mottos is I like to make things simple. And almost everything can be made simple. But it's a skill you have to learn. You have to learn that skill to take that complex crap and then simplify it. You see me do it upstairs all the Time. You'll give me this case, all these facts. I was like, all right, uh, here's what's really going on. Here's what's happened behind the scenes. Let's simplify this and make It. So it's understandable. And I think a skill that you guys are developing and will eventually master, I hope, is that you can speak both languages. You want to learn to speak both languages. And there's too many people in Law School and there's too many people in med school, too many accountants, too many other sort of trained quote professionals. And I say that with them, um, in the most self deprecating way because I think it's a bunch of bs. Um, you have to be able to speak both languages because there's nothing more arrogantly ignorant than a lawyer who uses a bunch of legalese. Talking to people. I find it just reprehensibly offensive. It just elitistly offensive. So I think a skill set that I would encourage you guys to master is to take the Complexities of Marbury vs Madison or any of these other cases and then be able to break it down and make it simple so anybody can understand it. And if you can do that, you will be a successful lawyer. And not just because you'll be a good lawyer. You will be, but because you'll be a good business. And Troy, you see me talk to clients. It's, uh, not just that I. It's that I really believe it is reprehensible to talk to people with a language they don't understand. Because you're just people who do that. You're just doing it to make yourself feel like you're smarter than everybody in the room. And that is nonsense because a lot of people you'll talk to who aren't lawyers, they know how to build an entire house or they know how to plumb an entire house. And if you think it's easy to plumb a house, go read the regulations on that. Um, as a lawyer, it's difficult to understand the. I'm working on a house right now and I got a guy who knows how to plumb. He's like, look, you gotta understand, you gotta have a sanitary T instead of a regular T. And it's gotta be at this thing, it's gotta be this. You have to have a vent within this man or this. It's like these people are smart people, um, just so to use legalese to them to make them feel like they're not. This is really what I'm talking about. But beyond that, if you can get your point across without legalese, you can go talk to a jury. So you can take this complicated crap and then you can talk to a jury about it and explain to them what your position is and what Your client's position is in a way that doesn't require them to have to look up at you in this haughty type fashion. So, anyway, that's my rant on legalese. And law professors do it all the Time because they live in that world and they love making you guys feel small. A lot of them do. Not all, but a lot of them do. So your quimby worries me a little bit.

>> Bella Mata: In other words, I do think you need to read the cases along with it. It definitely helps, but the professors will be able to tell if you got everything just from the video. Um, they would be able to pick up on that. So I would definitely read the cases along with it.

>> Troy Henriksen: A lot of them will ask for the fact pattern, and I'll sometimes laugh in class because I'll have it up just to be. Just in case you asked me a question or something. And I'll listen to them, and they'll be reading the criminal fact pattern Word for Word. And I'll be like, wow, I wonder what. So I do agree reading the case does help because a lot of the professors, they can tell, and then they'll.

>> Bella Mata: Ask you, like, little details about it. And m. You're like, ooh, yeah, let.

>> Troy Henriksen: Me go into that.

>> Steve Palmer: The skill to be able to say, here's what's going on in this case. You got two people who were drinking at a bar, and they were talking about this real estate deal, and they got drunk and they decided that they were going to sell, uh, this property, but they wanted to write it down and figure they wanted to have some sort of contract. So they wrote it down on a napkin while they were drinking. And it's like, if you can tell that story in a way that isn't like, quimbyized, you're going to be successful. So it's like, yeah, these two people got drunk in a bar and they were talking, and they were friends before, but they weren't friends after this. And they started to decide, I'm going to buy your land from you. Um, and I was. And one was as high as the Georgia pines, as the case would say. I'm talking about. I think it was Lucy versus Zamor. It's one of your first year contract classes.

>> Troy Henriksen: It is a contract. Um, that sounds right. I mean, you got the fact pattern totally right.

>> Steve Palmer: Yeah, it's right. And it was down in Georgia. It was as tall as the Georgia pines, or he's as high as the Georgia pines. They were drunk. So the issue in that case was whether there was an actual contract because somebody was too drunk to actually enter into a contractual relationship. But if you can tell that story in a way that is um, beyond rote. In other words, not just what Quinby says and put a little color to it, it makes you a better lawyer. So that's how you get A's in Law School. And the other way you get A's in Law School. Here's my other tip. In Law School, how do you get A's? You gotta know all this stuff and then you cite the cases. Well the professor said we don't need to know the case names. Yeah, but if you do.

>> Bella Mata: Mhm.

>> Steve Palmer: If you do and nobody else does, you'll get the A as uh, long as you got the rest of it right. So that's why I learned the case names. I probably still remember them. While uh, Lucy versus Amer was one. There's a man I'm starting. Hadley versus Baxendale was another contracts case that was like a windmill something or other, um, windmills. Somebody was selling a windmill to somebody else or windmill parts to somebody else. And the issue was what was the natural consequences of the breach of contract. It was about damage.

>> Troy Henriksen: M. I feel like probably 80% of all contracts class cases are construction, uh, contracts. Just subcontractors issues. That's almost all it is. And I tell my buddies that are construction management and then I'm like, you guys should go to Law School because you guys would be able to pick this apart. Like all this contract law stuff like that is all we learned about is your guys feel. That's it.

>> Steve Palmer: And it's a lot of those.

>> Troy Henriksen: It was.

>> Bella Mata: Yeah.

>> Troy Henriksen: And that's what I imagine most modern day, the most I guess exciting modern day contract disputes are going to be on is with subcontractors trying to do big projects through contract companies pretty much.

>> Steve Palmer: Well there's a lot of them. Every car deal has a contract. Every time you buy a house, it's a contract. Every time you hire a contractor to work on your house, there's a contract. You know, if you buy a. Every time you buy something from the store, it's a contract. You know, it's like there is a, uh, there's a meeting of the minds, there's consideration. You've uh, got a contract. So all these things are great. I mean it makes you look at the world differently. But anyway, back to the point. It's like this Quimby is awesome, but please learn how to do this on your own. It's so much better. You'll Be so far ahead of the game. Although I get it. Um, so what is the. You guys haven't had to study for the bar exam yet, so I'll share with you how I did it when we get to that. But so what is the. And I learned it studying for exams. So if you've got an exam, you're talking about cramming. What's the. How do you do it? Like, you've got Con Law coming up in what, three weeks you're going to have an exam.

>> Bella Mata: Mhm.

>> Steve Palmer: Yeah. So how are you going to study for that?

>> Bella Mata: Con Law is a little different because we really just do Supreme Court cases. So I think reviewing the cases would be most helpful in that class. But Civ Pro, I like using flashcards.

>> Steve Palmer: Yeah, it's learn the rules and learn what you get. So Civ Pro, your first year, you got subject matter jurisdiction, you've got diversity of citizenship, you've got.

>> Bella Mata: Well, that's what we're doing right now. We did the rules our first year. It is kind of backwards. I feel like other law schools do it the other way around. But we're doing like subject matter jurisdiction and all that right now.

>> Steve Palmer: It's hard. Subject matter. M. Jurisdiction is difficult.

>> Bella Mata: Mhm. And in her class, she gives us a lot of like worksheets and stuff in class. So before the exam I'll always redo those and check with her usually.

>> Steve Palmer: So Constitutional law, you would, um, you need to know how it works. You need to know how judicial review works and understand the levers of power that each branch of government has. So you're going to be presented with questions, you're going to have to spot the issues and you're going to have to be able to explain how it all fits together. What's the issue? Is there authority for Congress to pass this law and what is it? Um, you know, then you get into things like probably second year you'll get. Or second semester you get into freedom of speech and that kind of crap, I think, or the Bill of Rights. But the first semester is all about understanding how government works, how the process works. So you have to understand, uh, the process of judicial review. Does Congress have the authority to act? Does Congress not have the authority to act? Why not? Preemption. Um, have you done that yet?

>> Bella Mata: Um, yeah, we did.

>> Steve Palmer: All right, so you'll get a question with a fact pattern. You say the real issue here is whether, uh, the federal government has preempted the field. You know, it's like, so you have to understand that stuff. And I'M telling you, if you can cite the cases. If you can cite the cases.

>> Bella Mata: Yeah, he would love that.

>> Steve Palmer: Yeah, you're going to get the A. You got to be right about the other stuff, but you're going to get the A. So memorize the cases. Yeah, that's advice. You'll be so far ahead.

>> Bella Mata: Mhm.

>> Steve Palmer: And there's. There's just nothing. Uh, there's no better way to do it. And then the other thing that I used to do is I would start. See, we didn't have Quimby, we had Gilbert's. Uh, it was like an outline that was a thick sort of spiral bound Book. And it was an outline. And I'll just share my. I didn't do anything in Law School or hardly anything at first. I mean, at first I learned all the language, then I've got ADHD and I tend to blow stuff off and I would even forget what we even covered. So I had to look at like the table of contents in the case Book. And I would take a horn Book and I'd go back and I'd just learn it all. I would just learn it all. I'd start at the beginning of the hornbook and I would start outlining the, um. I create my own outline of the horn Book or Gilbert's or whatever. And then I would reduce it, and then I would reduce it. And then I would reduce it till it was just like one page of topics. And I had it memorized by the end of that. Now it was nauseatingly painful to do that. But if you do that, you will learn it. You will learn it and you will never forget it. And in the. And as you reduce it, write down the case names of the big of the big picture cases that you know you're going to get asked on. And once, uh, you do that, you will know the material because you have taken it, you have simplified it on your own to a shorter version several times. In the process of doing that, you learn it. It's like the old, um. Like when people used to cheat in school, they would write out their own little crip sheet that they would hide wherever and they would have a cheat sheet on their hand or whatever. In order to fit all the material on their hand, they had to start with something a lot longer. And then they would only put the stuff they actually needed to memorize on their hand. By the time they got that, they never had to look at it.

>> Bella Mata: Mhm.

>> Steve Palmer: Because the process of creating your cheat sheet, you've learned it and that's the trick to memorizing vast amounts of material, and there's only one good way to do it, and that's just do the hard work.

>> Bella Mata: In ConLaw, we could actually use our outline on the final.

>> Steve Palmer: Yeah, there's a lot of, there's a lot of, uh, classes like that, but you got to create an outline, and if you don't create the outline, you don't learn it. And that's just it. So if I gave you my outline, probably still could dig them up somewhere and I could give it to you and you would be like, this makes no sense because to me it was reduced down to like simple terms. But, um. All right, so now you're going to finish your second years in Law School. And one of the questions. I'm going to shift gears here because one of the questions I had in my Q and A series, you guys were here when I answered it, which is somebody, uh, was talking about how to get into election law or political election law or something, which is like a bigger picture question. Like what? I hear people all the time say, I'm going to be a corporate lawyer, or I'm going to be a civil rights lawyer, or I'm going to be whatever. And I always sort of think, yeah, okay, okay. Like now it's possible, like if my kids, my boys went to Law School and they say I'm going to be a criminal defense lawyer, well, that has some, that has a path in front of them because that's what I do. I could hire them and they could learn this. But generally speaking, what is, like, what is the thought process for people looking for jobs and trying to specialize and do different things? Is that anybody talking about that yet?

>> Troy Henriksen: I think people are starting to care a lot more about it. I think the big Time, it will click, will be this January, probably because people realize that they need to get a job for the second summer, probably. Um, the school really does not shove it down your throat whatsoever, which is kind of shocking. I think the big thing that they want is to make sure you can actually pass the bar.

>> Steve Palmer: They want to pass the bar because it helps their credentials and it helps their stats.

>> Troy Henriksen: But also. Yeah, and also though, like a lot of people, it shocks when people talk to me about this. They're like, what's your focus in Law School? Like, what are you studying? I'm like, in Law School, there's not a focus here.

>> Steve Palmer: Other people who aren't in Law School.

>> Troy Henriksen: And I'm like, it's just general and we're just there to what's your major? Yeah, yeah. Uh, what's your major? And it's like no, there's, there's no majors. We're just pretty much there to pass the bar. That's our job. And then it just kind of um. I'm trying to think. I lost my point there. We talking about bar?

>> Steve Palmer: We're talking about what's your specialty, what you want to go or what? Your third year you can get some electives.

>> Bella Mata: Yeah, yeah. We start that a little bit this year which is nice. Like I'm in a Family law drafting class which I find interesting. But personally I don't know exactly what I want to go into. There's a few topics that I'm interested in, but I kind of feel like that's like the bulk of our class. To be honest. I don't think everyone really has a set plan. I know you really like criminal law and that's probably what you're going to do.

>> Troy Henriksen: But yeah, I know. There's also a lot of people who. This blows a lot of people's mind too. And they tell my Thomas is they're like they're not going to take the bar. There's like a lot of people who are like I'm there to get my jd, I'm not taking the bar.

>> Bella Mata: Yeah. And it just interesting. Yeah, yeah.

>> Troy Henriksen: Because in my head I'm like one. Why don't you just try?

>> Bella Mata: What if you just might as well.

>> Troy Henriksen: Yeah.

>> Steve Palmer: What do you got to lose other than credential yourself? Because once your best chance of passing the bar exam is now.

>> Troy Henriksen: Yeah.

>> Bella Mata: Mhm.

>> Steve Palmer: I don't, I don't. I don't think I fight. Went and sat for the bar exam cold. I bet you I couldn't pass it right now.

>> Bella Mata: I bet you could.

>> Steve Palmer: I don't think so. Um, the multi State bar exam is just wrought with all sorts of multiple uh, choice questions that you have to have. Like you would have to, you have to study to understand the best way to take that test and pass it. So I mean I might be able to pass the essays. Maybe. Probably not. I mean there was maybe 10 years ago I could but now it's like eh, I've sort of lost all the stuff. You know right now you don't. You'll take for granted how much you know right now when you're done with Law School.

>> Bella Mata: Yeah. They're actually changing the bar for us.

>> Troy Henriksen: Yeah.

>> Bella Mata: We're going to be the first class to take the new bar.

>> Steve Palmer: What is the new bar?

>> Bella Mata: It's supposed to be a little Easier. I think they took some topics off it, and it's a little shorter.

>> Troy Henriksen: I think they took, um, like business administrations, like off there and then also family laws off and then trust wills. Yeah.

>> Bella Mata: Ah, all that stuff.

>> Troy Henriksen: Yeah.

>> Bella Mata: I was kind of surprised because I feel like those topics are pretty common.

>> Steve Palmer: Yeah, I don't agree with any of that, frankly. Um, and the reason is this is that even in, like take a criminal law practice, we encounter all those issues day in and day out. Maybe not every day. I guess that might be an overstatement, but it's very common. I'll get some issue that has to do with a will or trust that is now in the criminal realm. And if you don't have the basic understanding of how that stuff works, then you're. You're behind. Um, you're behind. I believe everybody their first year out of like, if I'm in a general practice, I took what I could because I wanted to learn how to do a divorce. I'm not good at it, but I can do it. I could monkey through it. I could make a will. Um, and at least back then, uh, now I know who to call to make a will. But it's like, I think it's important to have that baseline understanding. So you have the terminology. We deal with civil cases all the time that are corollary to criminal cases. I'm doing it right now. I've got a conference call this afternoon on a case that my client could have been. It was a murder investigation, could have been charged with murder. Now there's a civil lawsuit and I've. You got to refer the matter and go speak intelligently with a group of haughty civil lawyers who get paid lots of money by their law firms. And I can swim in that pond because I learned this stuff. And if you don't learn this stuff, I think you're at a disadvantage. So I don't agree with that. Anyway, that's my.

>> Troy Henriksen: That's fair.

>> Steve Palmer: My two cents. Yeah, let them call me and talk about. I'll take care of it. So back to the question. What do you want? So you want to be a criminal lawyer?

>> Troy Henriksen: That's. That's the goal. Hopefully criminal defense. So I decided here.

>> Bella Mata: And yeah, like I said, I'm not positive yet. I am interested in a few different areas. I do like family law. I am very into politics, but like you said, it is kind of hard to really.

>> Steve Palmer: You got to find. So. But I think what you're really asking. How do you get into political law? Or is there such a Thing and you know, if you've got the wherewithal to go explore special interest groups. There's a lot of nonprofits, uh, that do that kind of stuff. Um, there are some law firms that do that. The big law firms all have some division that will do these weird specialties. So most people find their specialty either based on what I talked about. Uncle Bob, I don't know if that was this podcast or a different one, but if your Uncle Bob has this business and Bob's business is importing clothing from China and then sorting it out, um, I had a case like this one Time, believe it or not, this guy imported clothing, uh, was made in China. It would all get shipped to this guy's warehouse. And what he would do is he would take a representative sample and inspect, uh, the boxes, open the box and inspect them. And if there were X number out of uh, the box that were screwed up or blems, blemishes, then the whole thing would get sort of shipped off. And I guess then my client's job was to then take the entire uh, shipment that has now been deemed, um, undeliverable. Uh, and he would then go through and pick out the ones that are really bad and then resell the ones that are good. And they would go to places like Schottenstein's or the second run clothing stores, which, um, are perfectly fine. They were just, they had to be picked through. A couple times he had that business, a weird little business. All right, so you could become a specialty in that kind of import export, uh, textiles or whatever really quickly just because that's your first client. Fair enough. Or if you go to a law firm, you want these big law firms doing on campus interviews, uh, you would be, they uh, say, look, we'll hire you. You'll be a summer. You get your summer clerkship at one of the big law firms and we're going to put you under partner, uh, Joe over there or Jill over here. And they do contracts work. So now you're going to be a contracts lawyer or you're going to be in their real estate division or you're going to be in their uh, Medicaid division or government compliance division where you're gonna learn all sorts of nuances about that area of the law and you become a specialist in that area. It's your first job. That's how you get a legal specialty. You don't pick a major. Usually speaking or Generally speaking, the OCIs.

>> Troy Henriksen: Aren'T all just big law. I think there was really only like two Big laws there, and then there's public defenders and prosecutors office there. But then there's a lot of, like, small firms that come in there and they're just trying to recruit one person. And they'll get like, you know, 50 applications that way, and they can burn through them all in one day of interviews with everybody. So it's kind of interesting how they organize it.

>> Steve Palmer: Well, that's how I found that various M times I've had many, like five associates working under me. And I found them all the same way, just law clerks and just bring them up through the ranks. It works. I mean, it's a great way for you guys to learn. Then I get. I train my associate who does it my way from the outset, and then I don't have to worry about somebody else screwing it up. So anyway, I guess we didn't do a normal. They don't teach you that in Law School. But I think this was helpful for me to understand where you guys are. So you're going to be coming out of Law School, looking for your first jobs and, uh, taking on the world with your law degrees. Any last comments? For those who are thinking about law.

>> Bella Mata: School, My advice would be don't let anyone scare you. I feel like going into Law School, everyone was like, oh, good luck. Like, it's so hard and stuff. It is challenging and it's very time consuming, but you could definitely do it. It's manageable. So I wouldn't get discouraged. That would be my advice.

>> Troy Henriksen: Um, they did recommend not working your first year. And I said, no, I'm better than that. I can work my first year. And that was brutal. I got, like, no sleep. Um, so I would.

>> Steve Palmer: Yeah, but you did it.

>> Troy Henriksen: Yeah, I did.

>> Steve Palmer: And you passed.

>> Troy Henriksen: Yes.

>> Steve Palmer: You know how often somebody's asked me for my, what my GPA was in Law School?

>> Troy Henriksen: Never.

>> Steve Palmer: Never, Never. Yeah, never. Nobody cares.

>> Troy Henriksen: Right?

>> Steve Palmer: I mean, unless it's like in a. In a social setting where I'm like, talking, uh, to. Talking to a prosecutor yesterday who was about, uh, she was, you know, ten years after me. Maybe ten, a little bit. But I was just asking her as a social matter, like as a courtesy, like, oh, where'd you go to undergrad? Where'd you go to Law School? But it's like there was. I had no judgment about it, but nobody cares. Nobody cares. Oh, you went to Harvard, right? No, that stuff matters. Big law schools matter in this sense is that you're going to have certain advantages when you get out, just by virtue of the network. Um, but they Teach the same law, they teach from the same books. Now, you might end up with. You also have to understand that Law School is curved. In other words, it's not like somewhat subjective really. I was graded anyway based on how I compared everybody else. So, you know, it's a curve. So if I did better than you, I got a better grade than you by judgment of the professor. Uh, so that wasn't really objective as much as it was a subjective curve. Um, and if you get to the, if you, if you surround yourself with really, really, really, really smart people, you know, don't expect to get a better grade necessarily because it's getting, you know, you're, you know, the law. But they can articulate it better, they're going to get a better grade. Um, so there's some of that going on at the bigger, more prestigious law schools. But I got the same education everybody else got at Capital, just like you guys are getting.

>> Troy Henriksen: We're in Columbus where everybody I talked to outside of Law School or outside law community, they're like, oh, you go to the Capitol. Like every lawyer they know in town went to Capital pretty much. And I don't.

>> Steve Palmer: Man's Law School, man.

>> Troy Henriksen: Yeah.

>> Steve Palmer: And you know why you go to Capitol? This is the old joke. Because you can get in an Ohio State.

>> Bella Mata: We get that a lot.

>> Steve Palmer: Yeah, that's why I went. I could do it at night and I can do it at night. So Capital is a play. It's unique in that way. You can do a program to pay for it. And you get a lot of guys, a lot of gals at Capital who have families or it's their second career and they're getting, they're picking up their JD at night, which, you know, that is a, that is a really unique thing that, uh, has a lot of value.

>> Troy Henriksen: I think a really unique program that I looked into before going to the Capital was at Loyola, I think in Chicago was they have a weekend program where you do one week in a month online, one weekend a month in person. Because you have to do so much in person. I don't know why the bar has that rule. They don't.

>> Steve Palmer: It's accreditation standards for.

>> Troy Henriksen: Yeah. And it was like, I was like, that's a really cool program. Four years.

>> Steve Palmer: It's a really good way not to learn the law.

>> Troy Henriksen: I know, but it's in my head, I was like, wow, this is something that could really work with a full time working schedule. And that's why I was like trying. I was trying to figure out that.

>> Steve Palmer: And those guys are generally those people, not just guys. Those people are better law students. Often they've been in the real world. They're choosing to go to Law School not just as something else to do, um, and they're going to really devote their time and energy to excel at it. So a lot of those programs are filled with people like that who are more responsible adults by the Time they're going to school. So. All right, any last questions? Anything they don't teach you in Law School now, is it? Actually, it's not just now. Next week will be another chance. So anyway, this has been Lawyer Talk, off The Record, on the air. They don't teach you that in Law School, but a little different take on it. Hope you enjoyed it. If you've got a question, you got a topic. If you're a law student and you want to chime in on any of these, check, uh, us out, put it in the comments. Send us a, uh, question@lawyertalk podcast.com. but if I don't hear from you, guess what? I'll be back anyway, each and every week, at least until now.

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