So, here we are.  I've been in law school for two months now, I've acknowledged I'm an idiot, and I had the experience of turning in my first memo and taking my first midterm to reiterate that, over and over and over.  I have been sitting on the couch post-exam for a while, and after catching up on all the trashy TV I missed, my sense of obligation to my community reasserted itself.  In the wake of the trauma that was the first law school exam, I have decided to write a public service announcement.  Studying for the first exam was a stressful experience, but there are things out there that made in and out of class preparation unnecessarily, sometimes hilariously, awful.  I do not know all of these people personally, or by name.  If you're offended by these descriptions, I am deeply, deeply sorry.  I'm sure that they're not about you.  Or not just about you.  I have titled this public service announcement "Don't Be That Guy".*

Don't Be That Guy who poses ridiculous hypotheticals in class. Whether or not you saw an awesome and legally relevant episode of "Law and Order: SVU" last night, or found yourself wondering about personal jurisdiction on Jupiter is of absolutely no interest to the class.  If you must pose a hypothetical, please try to limit yourself to 5 minutes, a minimum of detail, and characters that one could find in real life.  I do not care how one would properly serve process to a velociraptor.

Don't Be That Guy who clears his throat every 30 seconds in the library. I realize that it is not a designated quiet study space.  I realize that you apparently lodged an entire Uptowner breakfast sandwich in front of your uvula.  But are you actually choking?  If so, I would be more than happy to administer the Heimlich Maneuver.  I learned it in Brownies.  However, this incessant throat-clearing is making me think that I am being exposed to swine flu.  They have shots for that.  Oh, wait, they don't?  Huh.  But I thought...Never mind.

Don't Be That Guy who asks the very last question in every class, even when class is way, way over. So the professor ran 7 minutes over in his lecture, and you really, really need to have your question answered?  Let me ask you this.  Do you feel the temperature go up as you raise your hand?  Those are the red-hot stares of your classmates, boring into the back of your head.  How important is this question?  Does it have to do with velociraptors?  Or worse, a poorly-veiled reference to something you did as an undergrad that you just found out was a felony?  Yeah.  Not a good time.  I need to caffeinate before I collapse on my attack sheet, and you are officially interfering with my ability to do so.  Not cool.

Don't Be That Guy who talks about how he has his Shmemo Two draft done already while the rest of us are wigging out about the midterm. Yes.  You're a superhero.  But get a secret identity as a normal person who hasn't had time to work on that much yet, since they had an exam to study for and an inability to go five days without sleep.  It's a humility thing.  The rest of us mere mortals want to look up to you as a pillar of Truth, Justice, and the GW 1L Way, and we can't do that if you're bragging about how you are just that much more awesome than the rest of us.

*(Obviously, the designation is gender neutral, but I think it's much more entertaining to picture someone who looks like a "Tool Academy" runner up perpetrating the following acts.)