The semester is off to quite the start – my days are filled with Westlaw searches, Tax Notes, and Bloomberg Portfolios.
A few things have changed since my J.D. days in Minnesota – TWEN has been ditched for something called Canvas and I am expected to find all of my assigned readings online, which means that I did not have to purchase any books. (Which is amazing!)
…and there is definitely something different about the younger students.
I’m at Union Station and incredibly sweaty.
I have made this mistake several times already — I try to take the metro while wearing a suit and end up grossly sweaty by the time I make it near campus.
Every time I promise myself that I will just take an Uber next time I wear a suit. And every time I foolishly try to take the train again — “It’s not that warm,” I tell myself. Wrongly.
I am at the Tumi store politely listening to a salesman list features of various messenger bags and briefcases.
Several bags are too bulky for my tastes. Others look like “old man briefcases.” Some look like purses.
One of the messenger bags has most of the features that I want. The salesman tells me it’s $500. I quickly leave the store.
My search for a professional laptop bag is in its fourth hour and I feel ridiculous. My previous bags from Tumi and Kenneth Cole are worn and ratty from years of abuse, but everything nice is out of my price range. I finally turn to Amazon.
Classes started and I am already well-acquainted with the law library.
The LL.M. program is going to be challenging, but it’s also a luxury to focus on nothing but tax law for two semesters. My J.D. program felt like a hodgepodge of different topics at times, whereas my LL.M. classes are clearly interrelated and cover much deeper material. We’ll see how I feel in a few weeks.
Buildings along the National Mall in Washington D.C.
Washington D.C. is beautiful and dense. The lack of tall skyscrapers for landmarks makes it difficult to navigate at times. I’ll eventually figure out the grid system.
The streets are very diverse and busy without being crowded. There are tourists with cameras, people wearing suits, baseball jerseys, children running on the subway, and very aggressive panhandlers.
Many areas of town are busy late into the night, but there’s always the looming threat of getting mugged — so I guess it’s like any other large American city, just with more museums than most.
The week flew by — I finished LL.M. orientation at Georgetown University Law Center, got acclimated to my new apartment, and even managed to get some sightseeing in.
Being back in school isn’t as weird as I thought it would be. Georgetown University Law Center has a standalone campus in the heart of Washington D.C. and the facilities are definitely an upgrade from the University of Minnesota, where I earned my J.D.
GULC is significantly bigger than U Minnesota — about three times larger. The Georgetown LL.M. class alone is about the size of the Minnesota J.D. class.
The size of the LL.M. program means that it has a lot of dedicated resources — significantly, a five-person career center staff who emailed extremely helpful information and guides throughout the summer.
Another thing that impressed me is that the vast majority of LL.M. professors are adjuncts and local practitioners. This means that GULC has a significant presence in the D.C. tax community and there’s always someone around to answer questions about a particular firm or agency.
Last night the Gamma House threw a party, and I promised pictures:
