It begins...

I got my juris doctorate degree a year ago from BYU law school. After working a year at the Fourth District court in Provo, Utah, I quit my job so I could raise my daughter at home. I have taken and passed the bar in both Washington and Utah. Currently, I am not working (at least, not in any way that pays me money).

I am starting this Supreme Court project as a way to keep me legally minded and sharp until such a time as I can go back to work. I choose to stay at home with my daughter, Anna, who is almost a year old. I am not willing to compromise her childhood for my own ambitions, but at the same time, I love the law, I loved law school, and I know that at some point I will be a practicing attorney in some capacity. I need to be ready when that day comes, but I cannot just expect to come back to the law after a few years hiatus and expect that it will welcome me with open arms and a job offer. So I am taking matters into my own hands.

I am going to read one Supreme Court case a week and keep a journal of my thoughts as I struggle to understand the direction the law is going. This is an exciting time for the Supreme Court, and there are a lot of changes brewing. I don't want to be left out, and right now I could not tell you the difference between the opinions of Justice Kennedy and Justice Scalia. I want to change that. I want my mind to become a sharpened instrument like it used to be. And I know it is going to be a challenge, because it was a challenge when reading cases was my full time occupation. Since then, the most common reading I do is "Bubbles takes a bath" and "the Runaway Bunny."

So here are my first thoughts:

I have just started reading my first case, LEVIN v. COMMERCE ENERGY, INC., and I found myself having to read the first few paragraphs a couple of times each just to get my head around what I was reading. I had to take a break after the first page (but I am not going to watch The Bachelorette instead). I have gotten out of shape as far as legal reading is concerned. All the words are so long. It is a lot different than reading picture books. To top it off, the issues are not ones that particularly interest me-- some stuff about unequal taxation of natural gas suppliers. Yuuuck! I have only been away from the law for a year, and I already feel like it is like the first day of law school all over again.

I will write again when I have gotten further.