Last Day of School

A lot of you have followed my blog since I left New Zealand.  Hasn't time gone by fast?  Today is the last day of my law school classes.  What that means is no more formal education!  That's it.  I have nine years of post high school education.  9 years!  That doesn't include when I started pre-school at 4.  Today was the last day of class in my entire life.

Also, the final class of my formal and professional education, was anticlimatic.  No fanfare.  No food.  Nothing special.  No powerful speech about being great human beings.  It was just a regular class.  I remember the last day of class from my 1L professors more.  It was all so much more dramatic then.

A lot of my classmates are ready to be done.  If I took their charted course, I would be too.  Many of them took the same type of classes that resemble 1L year, tax, business association, etc.  You can do that.  And if you do that for three years, it'll get boring real fast.  Hence the saying, 1L they scare you.  2L they work you.  3L they bore you.

1L scared me.  2L worked me.  3L worked me more.  This has been a strange year in general.  I think I really enjoyed it though because it was entrenched in practical experience.  I served the poor and won a lot of hearings.  I did three clinical classes, where I learned depositions, opening statements, closing statement, directing witnesses, cross-examining witnesses, interviews and negotiations.  There are a lot of skill sets there.

I lectured in France.  I taught undergrads and wrote two pieces that are getting published.  I have two or three more that will hopefully be picked up for publication.  I won a number of hearings for the most prosecuted, persecuted, and invisible members of society.  I had a police policy changed in the LAPD.

So - lots done, lots of stress, lots of pain, and lots of fun.  My next post will be on my most recent police impound hearing.

All in all - the lesson are basic but have to be said

Don't stop learning.
Don't stop growing.
Don't be afraid.