Suit Up

This weekend was Suit Up weekend. On both Saturday and Sunday I had to suit up. It made me realize I probably should own more than one suit. If only I had money...Anyways, Saturday the suit up occasion was a job fair, aka an exercise in being pretentious and figuring out what people can do for you. What an awful idea, as a general rule. But then again, beggars can't be choosers (someone should tell that to the homeless guy outside CVS in Dupont), so I have to try everything I can. I did table talk with some recruiters, and handed out a few resumes. Of course those resumes are now invalid, having since received a new grade to affect my GPA (still waiting on one) and a new accolade (more to come on that front, see below, but don't hold your breath). There was one woman who I got a nice conversation going with from the White House Council on Environmental Quality. Doing policy advisement for the White House? Yes please, sign me up. I got her business card ("I got her numba, how d'you like dem apples?") so that's a good sign. I'll follow up with her this week.

Today was Suit Up Sunday for the ADR client counseling competition. ADR = alternative dispute resolution. ADR covers client counseling, mediation, negotiation, and arbitration (and maybe some other -ations). The competition format was basically that you and your partner are lawyers meeting with a client for the first time and you have to discover what his story is, what he wants, what the issues are, etc. There isn't a good way to prepare for it. It's mostly picking it up on the fly. It's being a pretend lawyer. Think mock trial (Sustained! Sustained!) only not about litigation.
But anyways, I did well enough (top 30 out of...a lot I think) and I was chosen for ADR Board. What does that mean? In descending order of importance: 1) I did better than people in a competition. 2) I get to put this on my resume. 3) If I choose I can participate in other school-wide and inter-school ADR competitions. Not too bad for about 2 hours of work total. A great low-risk, high-reward situation. And I get rewarded. Because I won. Competitive much? I think so.

The weekend has clearly been law school intensive. Most of the weekend that wasn't spent suiting up was spent writing this brief. I am currently pretty much done with a draft of it, but rewriting a section of it to decrease word count and increase clarity. I'm going to end up with two versions of that section and have to choose. But I have two work products! This is like making me choose between my children! Or not. I'll just choose the one my that fits the format my professor wants. So I guess it's like choosing between my children if one of them cured cancer and the other was a ne'er do well, and not even the good type of ne'er do well, but a fat, slovenly, boring one. No agony there. Perhaps I shouldn't have children, or at least children who turn into fat, slovenly, and boring. So they probably shouldn't take after their father. Hey-oh. I just zinged myself. Oops.

On Friday I had a Bulgarian waiter at a Mexican restaurant. It was odd. And my enchiladas weren't the best. Coincidence? I don't know. But, like the rest of the world, I have no problems pointing fingers at the Eastern Europeans.