Having trouble understanding this nonsense? Are you a law student? Well come on, get it together. You should know all the laws by now. Not a law student? Are you hooking up with one of the cast members? Or did you hook up with someone else and make a cast member? Then why are you here? Ok, either way you're here and probably have no idea what a lot of these jokes mean. Please consult this glossary to gain familiarity with some of the common legal terminology used during tonight's show.
1L: An innocent (and naive) first-year law student. The life has not yet been drained from their eyes.
Cold Call: The ideal form of torture by law professors. Each class, students shiver in fear that the professor will randomly call on them for an interrogation of the class reading. Probably a violation of the 8th amendment and the Geneva Convention's rules against torture.
The Curve: The bane of any law student's existence. Makes a B+ seem like the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. And no, we're not sure what a "floating curve" is either.
Big Law: You coud say that working for big law is fulfilling and exciting. You could also say that law students are humble. We all know why law students are dying to secure a big law job reviewing documents for 12 hours every day - $$$
Summer Associate: This is when a law student works at a law firm over the summer. The law firm rizzes the summer associate up - big dinners, activities, drinking - so they can't help but sign on to work there after graduating. Then the real work begins.
Public Interest: Want to save the world through the law? And worry about rent? PI may be for you!
Gunner: That one really annoying know-it-all in your class that needs everyone else to know they know it all tooo.
MPRE: Multistate Professional Responsibility Examination - aka the test law students have to take that teaches us how to be ethical (e.g. don't sleep with your clients and other stuff). But why would lawyers even need to learn the rules of ethics? Lawyers are inherently ehtical!
Law Review: Not just any journal--the best, most presigious labor camp that any law student will have the privilage of slaving away for. Every law school has a law review and ours is called Texas Law Review (duh). TLR staff editors know a lot about em-dashes and en-dashes AND get to correct italicized commas -- woohoo! But seriously, they are really smart.
Blue Book: Did you honestly think lawyers would use plebian citation rules like MLA? No no, the legal profession has its own convoluted set of rules all bound up in a little blue book that we call... the Bluebook. And yes, Texas has its own separate citation form called the Greenbook.
Citation: Aggressively attribute every single thing you write to someone smarter than you.
Id.: One of those aforementioned citations! When legal writers get tired of writing those long citations over and over again, they can throw in an "Id." It basically means "what she said" in the last citation. Double it and give it to the next person.
Supra: How to explain this without sounding boring? Um - another citation! It means "what she said" earlier in the article.
Westlaw/Lexis/Bloomberg: Legal research databases of choice for law students and purveyor of granola bars, free water bottles, and more swag. Allegiance to a database parallels the alliance to either House Lannister or House Stark, just without the dragons and nudity.
Clerkship: You know the drill by now - prestigious and hard to obtain. Baby lawyers work under a judge for 1-2 years writing and writing and writing.
