Second semester of law school: done

Previously: Fall 2025

I finished my second semester of law school a few weeks ago, only seven more semesters to go! I'm not yet technically done with my first year since we're required to take two summer classes this year (future summers we'll have off).

This past semester was contracts (officially "Law and the Market Economy"), legal research, and another lawyering seminar. Contracts was our only doctrinal class, and I managed to rack up 72 pages of notes.

There's a lot that goes into contract law!! It depends whether you're contracting over goods or services, and then if there's some provision of law you don't like, you can just override it in the contract, except for the ones you can't.

It was definitely overwhelming at the end, here's my graphical study guide:

Notably this is quite incomplete, it's missing the entire seventh question of contracts ("When do people not party to a contract have contract law rights or contract law duties?") because I ran out of time to finish it. I also didn't include browsewrap, clickwrap, etc.

Legal research was easily my favorite class because I enjoy looking up things and perusing different sources to evaluate them, but gosh, in no just and fair world should it be legal for Westlaw and Lexis and all the other providers to lock up and put a paywall in front of the basic legal information that essentially every lawyer needs to be able to work.

Not that I ever had any doubt in what Aaron Swartz, Carl Malamud, et al. were fighting against, but I definitely have a much greater appreciation for it now that I've been on the inside of Westlaw and HeinOnline and seen what treasures of knowledge they've locked up. And how crucial they are to be able to practice law effectively.

Our lawyering seminar revolved around a hypothetical case in which a child is diagnosed with a psychiatric condition and the mother refuses to treat it, with the question being whether the mother has neglected the child. I enjoyed it more than last semester's simulation because this time we explicitly took sides — I represented ACS, arguing that she had neglected her child — and got to write persuasive briefs, followed by oral arguments on a motion to dismiss.

Summer term is torts (i.e. private right of action) and another lawyering seminar.