Teamwork Makes Dreamwork

For the current appellant trial brief that we're working on, we have partners. I am so glad that I got to choose my partner and that things have worked out so well. I feel like working with someone has pushed me to work harder because I know someone else's grade is on the line. Unfortunately every year there are horror stories about working in groups and this year is no exception.

I feel like since you pay so much money to go to law school and you worked so hard to get here, you should continue to keep working hard. But hey, if you choose to slack off and get bad grades, that's your own choice that only helps the curve for me. What I really don't understand are the people who slack off when they're paired up with someone else or in a larger group. It's one thing to sabotage your own grade; it's another thing to bring someone down with you.

Writing briefs aren't the most fun or easy thing to do, but they're not impossible. More people than I expected simply couldn't pull together their 7-8 page parts despite all the inclass help that we got. The worst part is that so many of these people slacking on their parts of their briefs leave their partners hanging. I've had friends desperately trying to get a hold of their partners to find out where half of their assignment is.

It's just selfish. Do your work, and if you don't do your work, at least tell your partner what's going on so they can help/salvage their own grade. And hopefully learn from this experience (though I feel like this point in your life, you should have already learned about teamwork) because as a student, you get to be a lot more selfish than when you work in the real world with colleagues and you actually work for clients.