Michael Ho-Lung

Age: 29
Undergraduate School: Texas A&M University
Undergraduate Major: Journalism
Hometown: McKinney, TX
Status: Full-Time Day
E-mail: mfho-lung@mail.txwes.edu

11/18/09 - Memo 2 is turned in. I am glad to be rid of it; it’s kind of like ending a bad relationship - sadly there will be a sequel, like many bad relationships, in Memo 3 and beyond next semester. There were many of my classmates that were noticeably fatigued today, either from staying up all night to finish the memo, stressing out about the memo, stressing out about exams or any combination of the three. I thankfully didn’t stay up all night doing mine because I went in staggered stages. My natural inclination is not to draft multiple revisions of the paper, but I am far too careless to do it in a single try. Therefore, I did my first draft very early and then kept editing it. In the end it worked out just fine for me (or at least I think so, but I’ll let you know in January when I get my grades).

Personally, I would rather write another memo by the end of the week than do the citation examination we have on Friday. I think I mentioned this but I detest Bluebook citation work. Looks like I’ll be using the remainder of the week to prep for the inevitable annoyance on Friday. At the very least I can scratch the memo off the list.


11/11/09 - Well my home internet picked a prime time to stop working. It’s a little aggravating because there are so many things I need to use the web to do. Luckily I’ve been backing up all my stuff on a separate hard drive, so if my computer decides to be ridiculous I still have my Memo 2 at its latest stage.

Classes are winding down. I suspect much of next week will be review and last minute material. There’s a visible change of pace among the students because we can see the end of what everyone says is the hardest semester. The library has more people in it and I suspect it’ll get more packed as time goes on.

Personally, I think the workload has dropped since the amount of new material has decreased, and I’m not concerned with reading ahead now. Instead, I do practice exams and questions, so it works out well for me. As soon as Memo 2 is turned in then there won’t be much left to do except drill for the exams. I’m looking forward to it; I’d rather do it and get it over with than delay it longer - it’s a welcome change.


11/4/09 - As a class, we’ve gotten our first memorandum back with a grade. Aside from the Torts midterm, this is the only grade we’ve gotten so far. I did well, but not as well as I would have liked. In some ways it’s disappointing - I did more revisions of that paper than all of my undergrad papers combined. On the other hand, I look back at the first draft of it and see how much I’ve improved, so that’s encouraging. Another upside is that I can use it as a roadmap of “what not to do” on the second memorandum. It should prove useful especially considering the second memorandum is worth 50% of the grade in the class.

As the semester winds down, the workload has shifted. There’s a little less reading and way more drilling. Truthfully, it’s kind of a nice change of pace. It seems like there’s more time in the day - while I’m drilling I can listen to music and move around. That is far more relaxing than sitting still and reading for three hours at a time.

10/28/09 - We’ve officially got less than four weeks until exams begin. The workload hasn’t increased in official assignments but it’s getting more cumbersome because it’s time to start really learning the material. I don’t say that to suggest that we’ve not been learning it as we go but it’s a building process so we keep reading ahead and becoming familiar with the next concept to come rather than really cement the rules and theory into the head. So now as we round the bend to the home stretch we’re tasked with continuing to learn the new material and beginning to memorize and cement the past material. It won’t be long before exams now.

Also, the Innocence Project exonerated yet another person from wrongful imprisonment which is very exciting to me. I can’t verbalize how awesome it is to see the success of a program like the Innocence Project.

Finally, Halloween is this weekend and I must say that I wish I were doing something somewhere other than Fort Worth but I’m sure there will be something to do. It’ll be a switch from the last two Halloween’s I spent working on 6th Street in Austin. At least I’ll be less likely to get myself into trouble or spend money that I don’t have, both of which are always a good thing.

10/21/09 - We’ve officially rounded the corner; we’re over halfway through the first semester of law school. The work has become much more manageable because I’m learning which study techniques and times work best for me. I think it’s safe to say that the rest of my classmates feel the same. This is very fortunate, since the readings have gotten longer and the memorandums have increased in length and complexity. The bright side is that they didn’t just drop us in the crucible. I can honestly say that I’ve learned a lot so far. The most tangible evidence of some of the skills I feel I’ve improved on is legal writing.

Academic Support TAs will be holding a practice Torts exam on Thursday. It will be good practice for Torts in particular, and test taking under simulated conditions in general. To my knowledge there will be a practice exam in every subject - excellent. It’s a little unfortunate that it’s coming at lunch time, because there’s a professor debate and meeting for an extracurricular activity at the same time. Ideally I’d like to attend all three, but if I have to pick just one, I’m going to pick the practice exam (sorry Prof. and team leader).

10/14/09 - Last week the Texas Wesleyan Innocence Project (WIP) sponsored a Criminal Law Week. There were a variety of activities to attend. Sadly, I was not able to attend all of them due to scheduling, but the one I did get to go to was the exoneree luncheon. WIP had three exonerees come tell the students their stories of imprisonment for very serious crimes that they had not committed. Combined they served approximately fifty six years in prison. It was stunning to hear about the injustice they all suffered, and inspiring to hear about how WIP helped to set them free. WIP seems like a great program and it is a feather in the cap of every Texas Wesleyan Law student.

Memo 1 Part 2 is due tomorrow, and unlike Part 1, this one counts. I did several drafts so hopefully I caught all of my errors—or at least most of them. This will be the only graded assignment I’ve had other than my Torts I midterm, so I’m curious to see how I do.  Soon there will be a Memo 2 - that one will likely not have as many “training wheels” in the assignment to help us out. It’s so important that we get informative commentary on our papers, because Memo 2 is worth much more than Memo 1. I guess this one is the warm up.


10/7/09 - It’s a good thing I built what I like to call the “Oh No!” time into my schedule. Due to certain non-school related administrative ridiculousness and a variety of miscellaneous misadventures, I’ve managed to allow the syllabi to catch up to me. In other words, now I’m right where the next class is going on the syllabus. Some may disagree but in my humble estimation this is decidedly less advantageous than being a week ahead.

The grades for the Torts midterm haven’t come back yet, and most people I’ve spoken with are relatively anxious to see how they did. Admittedly, I’m one of them. But while I’m waiting for that, Memo 1 Part 2 has been handed out. It’s due on the 15th (read “not doing much this weekend”) so I hope to have my first draft done by Friday night so I can rewrite it again before Tuesday. I got the first part of the memo back - it wasn’t an epic tragedy but it was far from good enough. Luckily it was a completion grade to prepare us for Part 2. Hopefully, I catch more of the errors in proofreading. 

That’s it for now. I have a lot to do.


10/1/09 - Section one has their first midterm this week in Torts I. The anticipation I’ve heard varies from “moderately worried” to “we have a midterm?” I marked it on my calendar so I’ve put in the time with my study group, so all I can do now is wait and see how I do. Thankfully I don’t suffer from test anxiety, so making sure that I do the requisite study time is my key to maximize my chances of success.

This midterm is particularly fortuitous because it is a significant portion of the grade overall but not so much so that it detracts from the gravity of the final exam. Torts I is a four credit class so it’s advantageous to diffuse the weight a little so that a high final score is more plausible as opposed to having only one exam (which is typical) and having it worth more than the rest of the classes also.

This exam is also good because it’s a gauge of how effectively I’m absorbing the class material AND the effectiveness of my study habits, techniques and outlining. It’s sort of like a dress rehearsal minus the enormous time suck of studying for all four exams in December. Thankfully the test is short and the testable material so far is limited. That makes for a narrower scope of review which is never a bad thing. Here we go…


9/23/09 - If I haven’t mentioned it before I’d like to take the time to say it now: citation exercises for legal authorities are extraordinarily irritating. Yes, yes I know that they are quite necessary for a variety of reasons. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t both useful AND irritating (in law school we call this “conjunctive”). 

Truthfully, they aren’t that difficult but they are very exact. There’s a whole book of rules that one must diligently sift through to get them right. In fact there’s a workbook that teaches how to use the citation book. Some people are good at this type of thing. I am not because I’m generally too careless to get it right on the first try. So I growl menacingly at my laptop while my casebooks silently stare in mocking amusement because they know I’ve got to read them too before the day is out. Sadly, it’s a skill we all have to have so it’s no use fighting it.

I’m sure that this, like all the things we’re learning now, will become very useful to me long after they’ve become elementary. That’s the hope anyway. I’ll just keep practicing them with that in mind.

9/16/09 – Where do my weekends go?! I had some commitments to fill this weekend, and those combined with studying pretty much made time move in fast forward.

Well Memo1, Part1, is due at 9:00 AM on Tuesday and I am going through final checks right now. I’m curious to see how I do in comparison to the first mock assignment. Mine was admittedly terrible. I practiced on another example from the book because it was similar and I feel like I did better. So after some classroom instruction, a lot less speed and a lot more drafting, I hope I will have a marked improvement - especially because this one is graded.

At this point we’ve actually learned just enough to start picking up the pace in most of the classes. At the end of this month I’ve got a midterm in Torts, and at the end of this week I’ve got an optional midterm for Civil Procedure. I’m surprisingly happy about it. Yes, I said that. As strange as it sounds, I’m actually very excited for the opportunity to gauge how much more I need to step it up before finals. I’m sure both will be a good indication of where I’m weak, so the exams will hardly be the anathema they were in undergraduate. I hope that they give me the practice I need.


9/9/09 – Labor Day has come and gone and it was nice to have a three-day weekend. Truthfully I didn’t do too much, but it was refreshing to have the break from classes so that I could do all the admin stuff around my apartment that has fallen very low on my list of things to do. The best part about having a three-day weekend on a Monday is that you’re one day closer to next Friday AND you missed a Monday. If you have a three-day weekend where you get Friday off, it’s still great, but I feel a little cheated because I already made it to Friday.

We got our first memorandum exercise in Legal Analysis, Research & Writing (LARW) last week. It’s a short but comprehensive exercise to test what we’ve learned about citation, legal analysis, and legal writing up to this point. Despite the short page length it is still very time consuming. The problem wasn’t filling up the pages but rather cutting things out to make it all fit. It’s kind of funny how that changes from undergrad. I think that LARW will be the most challenging class I have all year, when it’s all said and done. 

I really tried to get as much of my work done as early as possible last week, so that I could build in time to relax and enjoy the rest of the weekend. It paid dividends in the end, and I got to visit some friends and do non-law school tasks for a few stretches at a time. Now it’s back to class - but at least I missed a Monday.

9/2/09 – Week two is in the books and we are picking up the pace. The first two weeks got us familiar with the essential skills we would need just to study law, i.e. briefing cases, online resources, vocabulary, basic premises of law, where is the bathroom, etc. This week the assignments and cases have increased in volume and are building in complexity, which is to be expected.

I have friends that are alumni of Texas Wesleyan Law, and I’ve known quite a few friends that have gone on to be attorneys, so I had a relatively good idea of what would be asked of me when I started. That being said, I haven’t done much in the way of non-school related activity since I started and I don’t imagine I’ll get much else in besides exercise before Christmas. I think that is the consensus among 1Ls as our biggest shock: the diminished (though not non-existent) social life aspect that was present in undergrad.

One of the most interesting things to discover has been the range of perspectives of law and its study that my fellow classmates and I share. Given that we are from a myriad of backgrounds, many of us approach the law with different eyes. For my part, I’m a single, twenty-nine year old guy that just decided that this was worth doing. I grew up (mostly) in McKinney, Texas and did my undergraduate (again mostly) at Texas A&M University in College Station. So I suppose you could say I had a fairly traditional undergraduate experience but I represent only part of the student body since many have families and former professions. It’ll surely bring a pretty diverse set of elements to our studies.

8/26/09 – Well week one as an “official” law student is in the books and I’m still alive. I wouldn’t dare imagine that I’ve got the hang of it, but it seems like if you do the work, it’s manageable. I do however have the sneaking suspicion that the professors are taking it easy on us, so I’m waiting with bated breath for the inevitable hand grenade of a seemingly impossible task list that I’m sure will come in due time.

What stands out most to me is that everything you’ve heard about the huge time demands that come with earning a J.D. is true. For once the hype lives up to the reality (if you’re taking it seriously, that is). That being said, I’ll share what a super green 1L has learned about being a law student in the last eight days.

What works well in terms of keeping up with your schoolwork is treating school like a job (or rather job training if you will). Basically, I clear my calendar from 8 A.M. to 5 P.M. (at the minimum), just as if I were back at work, and I stick to it. If you consistently do that, you can get everything done, and still review the information before class. It’s worked so far, and luckily it also builds in some “oh NO” time as well.