Rule 1 of your First Year at Law School: Don't Talk About your First Year at Law School

To rip off an all-too often ripped-off phrase, that may be the most important lesson I've learned in my first semester at law school. Of course, one must come to this rule with certain priorities in place. If "academic achievement" comes before life, love, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness, then getting grades and talking law school up as much as possible is the ultimate goal, no other rules needed. But I've discovered that in order to maintain any kind of humane equilibrium (ie--a life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness) certain rules must be followed at certain parts of your day. This first must be adhered to whenever outside of the law school. No matter what the recently admitted law student thinks, unless what he has learned that day at the law school is easily relatable to Matlock, Law and Order, or (for the older crowd) Perry Mason, no one gives a res judicata what collateral estoppel in its disfavored offensive usage implies in potential tort actions in the 9th Circuit of the United States. Really. No one cares. I think I once tried to explain to my dad the implications of a recent lawsuit regarding reverse-engineering software at Blizzard (makers of the ever-popular Warcraft series), and he followed me through all of the technical jargon, but once we hit the legal side of things, his eyes glazed over and he nodded at me until I stopped talking. Really, I can categorize people into two groups according to how they perceive legalese: the "Blah-blah-blahs," or those who maybe feign interest in the law-talking-guy in front of them, mustering a smile when appropriate and patiently waiting for him to talk about last night's episode of "The Office" or the "Bling-bling-blings" who, while bubbly, talkative, and overtly flirtatious, find comfort in their erroneous assumption that the more "legally" one talks the more "money" one makes, thus making whoever is in front of them the richest person they know. Seriously. Don't talk about law school outside the confines of your little world. Only in law school will battery without assault be funny because it's such a far-fetched hypothetical. Really. I promise