Good News, Bad News

So, the good news is: ONE OF THE ORDERS I WROTE WAS PUBLISHED!!! I'm suffering from serious geek happiness right now. Something I wrote (which was accepted with very few edits, much unlike the majority of the orders I've submitted), is now available on lexis, westlaw, and will be available in books in legal libraries. Wow. That's cool. Of course, it's this arcane, ridiculous subset of law that needed a published case because it hadn't been addressed before, so you can imagine how out-of-the-norm it was. I don't care. I'm still ridiculously excited.

Bad News: I met with the professor who gave me the crap grade. I explained how I mis-read her exam instructions and how my answer makes perfect sense if you follow my interpretation of the instructions. Unfortunately, including me, 2.4% of all students who took the exam went with my interpretation. I don't exactly have "this is a popular interpretation" as an argument on my side. The professor apologized, explained that she didn't feel she could do anything with my grade and offered to write me a letter of recommendation to explain that the grade is not indicative of my understanding of the subject matter (since I did much better on the other questions, and she knows me from office hours).

Obviously, I didn't turn down her offer of a letter. I explained that I wanted to clerk and was concerned about the grade, since it doesn't exactly look like it belongs on the transcript of a federal clerk. She told me to keep my hopes up. I'm wary though.

My clerk's comment today didn't help. He read my exam instructions and agreed that I had a decent argument (not the strongest argument, of course, but a decent one). When I returned from my meeting, he asked me how it went. I explained that my grade would not be changed, but that the professor would write me a letter. The clerk said, "That sucks. It shows that she doesn't understand how the process works. They put you into the 'No' or 'Yes' pile long before they read your letters. I'm sorry." His tone of voice was very sympathetic. Perhaps that was the most impressive thing of the whole exchange. This clerk thinks I'm being screwed. And he's off to the Supremes next year.

Oh well. Such is life. At least lexis and my clerk think I'm smart. And, as I said before, I'm not scheduled for sentencing on the criminal calendar. In the grand scheme of things, I've got no problems.

I've also probably got no reason not to take off for a week and go to Italy during the school year of 3L. Sometimes the silver lining rocks.