The Motion in Limine and the Life of a Lawyer

The Summer for Undergraduates Program 2010 is in high gear. Students who are fortunate enough to participate in this program get a head start on what it takes to be admitted to law school. They also get insight on the lifestyles of lawyers- insight that many students already in law school do not yet have.

A couple of SUG participants have commented that the vocabulary of the legal profession is completely new to them. They asked me how to pronounce a motion in "limine."

It is pronounced "lemon-EE." They asked me this question on day two of the program. However, I did not encounter the term, "motion in limine," until my second semester of law school when I tried out for the Mock Trial team. I did not have a good understanding of what it meant until my second year of law school when I enrolled in Trial Practice class and Evidence.

The SUG students are also receiving knowledge from speakers such as Dean Weidner, the dean of our law school. Dean Weidner cleverly illustrated that the profession of law is a literary profession, but that legal writing is different from other forms of writing. Often scientists or mathematicians can adjust more easily to legal writing than creative writers (or writers of a blog). Legal writing, he said, is an exercise in logic. It is about "making inescapable that which you would want to be inescapable, making illusive that which you want to be illusive." Perhaps the SUG students do not fully grasp that concept, yet, but as a rising 3rd year student, I understand what he means- mostly.

The SUG students are also visiting local law firms. The attorneys are very generous with their time and address the questions of the students in a frank and friendly manner. I myself am again learning things during these law firm visits that I did not know before, such as the various duties of partners in a firm, the methods of the "billable hour," and certain niches of practice of which I had never before heard.

One thing about these blog entries for the SUG Program- I have to write them quickly, in order to get on with my other duties as a mentor. Please excuse any grammatical errors or inarticulate phrases. I will try to clean them up as time permits.

But now, it is time to get ready for the 20 students whom we will be taking to four different law firms today.

YFM,

Nathan Marshburn