0L: Should you buy a copy of Black's Law Dictionary?

I've found my copy of Black's portable edition useful. The others seem to be a bit cumbersome, especially since you can look words up through Lexis or WestLaw. Also, it's not like they're using too many crazy legal words or anything. The need to look things up in the dictionary goes down considerably after the first month.

Oral Arguments

Oral Arguments begin today.

Also, it's insanely hot in Regents.

Briefs Returned

Most of the briefs were returned.

Woohoo.

Law School Prom

Prom finally happened. That lowers the number of things to be stressed about. But it really shouldn't have been something to stress about. Selling it as prom is a hard call. Prom implies dates, stress, and high school. Not many people brought dates. Not many of us were great at high school. I was incredible, of course. Not selling it as a prom would just be a formal, and those are not as cool as prom.

Food was OK (they were really betting on the "presentation is half the battle" theory of cooking), open bar was nice, so on and so forth. Everyone drank too much and thus wasted the entire weekend, a few weeks before exams start. At least everyone is in the same position, I'm sure there's some term like "reciprocity" that I ought to know that would describe this well. I guess I like the curve sometimes. Ask me again in a few weeks.

However, we can't forget that the practice moot court rounds start this week. Great.

Law School Idol; Pizza

I was hoping Helmholz would be a bit more cruel, but other than that it was pretty entertaining.

On a related note, please stop serving Pizza Capri. I don't care if it's cheaper, or whatever. All I know is that I came to Chicago with one chief goal: pizza. Eduardo's, Giordano's, Leona's, something please. Give me an apostrophe and I'm happy. Pizza Capri is the Cici's of Chicago pizza.

That goes for you too Federalist Society.

Hornbooks, Commercial Outlines and the Like

So far, hornbooks have been an invaluable expenditure. But not because they have any value as far as learning the law goes. No, they're worth it because they let me sleep better. They make me feel better about exams. Most of them have been bought on someone else's recommendation, and then tossed aside. Others actually have some value. Some seemed useful my first quarter, and now I read them and get nothing.

Here's what I recommend for UChicago:
Understanding Property - great, all around
Understanding Torts - more useful first quarter when I was confused about everything
Civ Pro E&E - useful for jurisdiction stuff, especially on the brief
Understanding Crim - good for trying to figure out if you actually ever learn anything in crim (answer: very little)
Emmanuel's - only useful when keyed to the book, and then, invaluable

Not recommended:
Gilbert's on Property, by Dukeminer - got nothing out of this. A super outline of all of property, written like the common law was codified. Not useful for my purposes. Understanding Property gives ambiguities and conflicting cases, as well as minor discusison of such issues. No such luck here.
Torts E&E - didn't find this useful, barely looked through it. Understanding answered my questions more clearly.
BarBri Outline - not sure why I have this, I've gotten nothing out of it.

I haven't bought many others, or I don't know enough about them to give any advice one way or the other

Today's Link

http://barelylegalblog.blogspot.com/

Barely Legal is one of the best cynical law blogs. They no longer post, but read the older posts.

Not everyone is so displeased with law school, but many are.

I'm not. I like it.