After my first week of legal study, it is with reluctant disappointment that I admit I am not yet prepared to be a lawyer.  But that's not to say the first week of law school hasn't had a number of practical applications and benefits.

Some of those benefits I might be willing to go without - like the positive health benefits derived from lugging casebooks through city streets and around the metro, from the basement to the fourth floor, and everywhere in between.  The first week also served some character-development purposes:  A new kind of humility comes with lugging those casebooks through city streets and around the metro and everywhere in between.  And I've found some of the lessons quite illuminating:  I'm now convinced that the real purpose of the games section of the LSAT was to prepare us for figuring out which of those casebooks to bring school, when we should bring them and in what order we should rotate them through our half lockers.

Beyond these physical and intellectual benefits, I've found some other practical applications to the first week of instruction.  I have begun to endlessly analyze situations I encounter for their legal questions and implications.

How fortuitous, then, that after the second day of classes, whilst walking home, I was hit from behind by a small child on a scooter.  My new, legally aware mind immediate flipped through the idea of an intentional tort - my mind raced through thoughts about the child's age, intent, and the meaning of harmful or offensive contact.  Regrettably, I wasn't injured, and my first analysis of a real world situation came to an abrupt halt. On another day, whilst walking to campus, a small dog looked at me a little funny, which got me thinking - what if this little dog attacked me without provocation.  Well, if I happened to live in Podunk County in the State of Apex, I might have an idea of where to start.

I've also found some interesting pragmatic applications of the classroom experience with the Socratic method.  Learning concepts through conversation is good, but learning the art of deep and intense conversation itself may prove more beneficial.  Good conversation can lead to new revelations - a skill that could be especially valuable in our current contentious political climate.  But good conversation can also lead to interesting new knowledge, like the fact that C. Calvin Broadus is Snoop Dog's real name, Bill Gates figures just as prominently in the hypothetical world as the real world, and I should watch more Law & Order.

I've also learned some of the more practical aspects of handling the Socratic method.  All of my professors emphasized the importance of participation, both to my own understanding of the material and also because it could help my final grade.  All through the week I waited for my first opportunity to participate.  Sometimes I waited with some trepidation that I would be asked to answer; sometimes I tried to volunteer myself.

Finally, on the last day in class, I had my opportunity to make an impression.  I proceeded to recite what I had rehearsed quickly in my head, which turned out to be entirely wrong.  But then I thought back to what one professor said on the first day of class:  For the Socratic method to really work, our professors rely on us being wrong.  And that may be the most practical lesson I learned in my first week of law school - even when I've answered wrong, I've done something right.