Corporate law

I came straight to law school from college without any practical experience, odd-end internships aside. For most of my courses, this hasn't been a problem. Constitutional law was relatively easy for me to understand because it is among the more political areas of the law and gets regular newspaper coverage. Everyone has an opinion on the constitutionality of abortion and affirmative action or is at least vaguely familiar with those issues.

But there are times when going straight through hurts. Corporate law is one of them. I think that a lot of my classmates had experience working for investment banks or consulting firms in New York and they probably already know much of corporate law cold. I have no idea what I'm reading about in large part because I don't have any familiarity with the issues. I just finished reading a case about the obligations that controlling shareholders owe other shareholders when making tender offers, and it was painful to read I think because I didn't have any appreciation for how important this issue is. My imagination can only go so far.

Then again, if I had taken time off, I still wouldn't have gone anywhere near investment banking or consulting. I'm not sure what I would have done, though. Maybe that's why I went straight through.