Reflections on a Changing Semester and Navigating Complex Legal Challenges

This semester at UB feels different than the first, and I am not alone. In passing discussions with more than a few classmates, it is apparent that the “feel” of class and the approach of the professors has changed somewhat since the last semester. It makes me think that the first semester may be the hardest because they make it the hardest, and now that we’ve survived, its time to push us through. I feel like the “Socratic method” is taking a back burner. Maybe its because it’s cold outside, maybe it’s because one of our professors is video recording classes, so he seems to have a vested interest in getting the material covered correctly, and efficiently, without too many people giving answers that are way off base. Who knows. Regardless, the semester is now two weeks through, and everyone already seems to be looking forward to the end of it. My hope is to do a lot of the reading for next week over the weekend, but this may be difficult for a number of reasons:

Yesterday Baltimore Criminal Lawyer Marc G. Snyder (my boss) met with a representative of an organization who is working to obtain competent representation for a 16-year-old child who is being charged as an adult with the murder of his allegedly abusive father* in Harford County. We may be going to visit the defendant in jail today or tomorrow, and possibly meet with family members and other supporters who are working to secure his representation. (*Not only do I not know all of the facts in the case yet, but I certainly do not want to discuss any legal strategy that may be employed or discuss any intimate particulars of the case that aren’t already publicly posted in various media outlets.) If we do end up taking on this case, there’s likely to be a storm of media attention, as there already has been up to this point in this case. We’ve handled a lot of significant cases at the office, but nothing eliciting a heavy media response. I’m not certain that I look forward to something like this, but I also suppose it goes with the business of handling higher profile cases.
Tomorrow is Marc’s birthday, and my initial plan was to take him out tonight to celebrate in some capacity, but that may be put on hold, or delayed somewhat due to our office possibly taking on the above case.
AFC Championship game, Sunday, 3 pm. At this point, anyone who is reading this blog is likely a UB student, and most likely (except MargoT, our ILS TA from first semester) is a Ravens fan. The interesting thing about this game is that my wife was born and raised in New Hampshire, and thus a Patriots fan. Fun times. If I have time I hope to be posting my prediction of the game on here in the next few days.
Hopefully, despite all of these distractions, I find the time to read, analyze and respond the work for the upcoming week on here. I’ve had fun writing this so far, and I think it’s going to help me solidify the concepts that we cover, and apparently, it’s helping some classmates, too.

A shout out and thank you to the number of people who’ve found started reading and have approached me positively about this site so far. My intention is to continue, through all of my remaining years of law school(which is all of them) and hopefully provide a mix of both course-relevant material/commentary, real-life law office experience, and maybe a little mix of my crazy life, too. Sometime next week I’ll try to provide some background on my journey to this point, what I do on a daily basis for work, and what my plans are following law school and admission to the Maryland Bar.