My Favorite Kind of Class

I was treated to my favorite kind of law school class today: substantive arguments, back and forth, with reasoned support required.

The class was Secured Transactions, and the debates focused around formation and existence of security agreements. This on its own, I realize, does not sound particularly enthusiasm-worthy.

However, when the professor (Alex Geisinger) presents his take on things in that class, he almost always follows it up with, “Take me on! Someone argue with me!” And he means it.

And better yet? He does not allow people to pull the wishy-washy (and time-wasting) “Well, I think that this judge was just mean and this opinion was bad and I don’t like it, and one time, at band camp, I had a security agreement with a friend, and…”

I hate the professors who allow that to fill up class time. HATE!

Not Geisinger. When you answer in his class, he asks you why. He asks you where you got the idea from. What support can you offer to shore up your statements? Then he’ll fire back another round of debate (or will allow other students to offer supported thoughts on the other side of the debate).

It’s fun. I like that. In my mind, that is the kind of discussion that will help me become a better attorney. While Joe Schmoe may really believe that his heartfelt personal stories of god-knows-what are phenomenally interesting and pertinent, until the day arrives that judges will allow me to cite Joe Schmoe as mandatory or persuasive authority, I’d rather learn how to “hermetically seal”** my arguments using the law.

Even if an argument is a bit “off,” so long as its advocate can offer some reasoned support for it, Professor Geisinger will run with it. He’ll explain why it wouldn’t work, or why, with some additional fact-finding and clever lawyering, it might.

And that’s what we did for most of the class today. Debated. With the professor. I love that.

My point? Um… I had fun in class today? Isn’t that enough?! For pete’s sake, isn’t that ENOUGH?! (hehe–here endeth my drama queen outburst. Just for fun.)