Hi Lin,

Yes, I remember "The Paper Chase". You are right there is always some professor that seems to fit that mold. They seem to delight in making life miserable for first year students. In my case it was one of my torts professors.The courses that drove me crazy were negligence and future interests. Evidence was no picnic either, especially learning the thought process by which you draw the logical progression of inferences from a piece of evidence or testimony. One of the judges in this area recently told me that Evidence had become an elective course at one of the local law schools. I could not figure that out. It is one of the basic core courses that is indispensable to a litigation practice.

Robert, if your planning to use your law degree to expand on your abstracting business, your future interests course is very important.  With respect to real estate it teaches you the impact of vested/divested remainder interests, executory interests, defeasible estates and the involvement of the probate courts.You may remember an old movie with Kathleen Turner called "Body Heat" in which the attorney had violated the Rule Against Perpetruitites in a will that he had drafted involving a future interest. The movie is much more enjoyable if you understand the rule,  how easy it is to violate it and how the entire structure of the will fell apart.

On the bright side though, we all seem to make it through, and ultimately what the professors were trying to teach you does eventually sink in. What you seemed to have trouble with in school becomes crystal clear by the time you take the bar exam, and it stays with you long afterward. The system does work.

Lin is right...never let anyone intimidate you. The dialogues between you and your professors in the Socratic method are intended to instill confidence in you. I have seen attorneys in court that are unprepared and filled with self doubt. They truely are intimidated by the system, and they do their clients a disservice. They are programmed for failure, and are already defeated when they enter the court room.  Once you have gathered the facts of the case, assembled the evidence, assessed the strengths and weaknesses of both your case and that of your opponent , and thoroughly researched the law you are fully prepared. If you are properly prepared, you are ready for combat.