Law School Lesson of the Day #32

Read and Follow Directions.

As a tutor, I've learned something extremely invaluable. I'll pass it along to you . . .

When our professors say one of the best ways to earn a good grade is by reading the directions --

Get this -- are you ready?

THEY AREN'T LYING!

As Law Students in the days and hours running up to the final exam, we spend our time frantically memorizing our outlines and attempting to get a firm grasp on the black letter law and its sometime esoteric theoretical applications . . .

We work so damned hard to grasp the concepts behind the Holder in Due Course, the Palsgraf rule, the Correlative Nature of Property Ownership, the Rule Against Perpetuities, the Hotchpots of various shapes and sizes . . . and so on and so on . . .

When -- like the lawyers struggling to remember a dead person can't sign a document -- we are having difficulty remembering a lesson we should have learned IN KINDERGARTEN

Follow the freakin' Directions!

Seriously. It works. We're going to be lawyers, shouldn't it come natural?

I don't know how many times I've shot myself in the foot before, but I swear I'm going to try this novel idea when I take my exams in May.