Good Fountain Pen For Law School?

[Tom Aquinas]

Here is a list of pens made especially for Law Schools:

1. Milord Objection: The bright orange yellow colour immediately attracts attention when held high above the head, and if that should fail, it is fitted with a blinding light at the back of the barrel which can be lighted with a switch. gaurateed to get the judges eye, and to momentarily stop your opponent lawyer from speaking and bereaking his train of thought.
2. Onion Skin Pen: So named not because of the shape but the effect. Fool proof mood change in the judge with instant sympathy for the witness. Recommended to be handed to the judge on any pretext possible before your client gets on the stand, and the judge will start crying tears of sympathy for the poor soul so wrongly treated by the world.
3. The Rottweiler: Gaurateed to make the judge feel like eating the witness quite like the trained Rottweiler on duty outside a high security prison. ecommended to be exchanged for the Onion Skin just before the star witness for your opponent gets the stand.
4. THWCP: The Hostile Witness Converter Pen or THWCP for short has a spinning wheel hidden in the barrel with alternating black and white lines. Gauranteed to hypnotize the witness in les than a second. Easy to hide and use. the hypnotized witness is preprogrammed to say YES to wink with right eye and NO to wink with left eye - ask away - and do not fear the witness anymore. Especially recommended for the expert witnesses like doctors and technicians called in by your opponent.
5. Lavender Memory: The court scribe wil be unable to write anything in the records which is not favourable to you with this pen.
6. Venus Pen: Named the Venus but actually it is an exact copy of Marilyn Monroe, and the heels of the shoes are the nib. BTW the shoes are the only thing MM is wearing. Male jurors are gauranteed to forget about the evidence being presaented by your opponent ad start scribbling notes in a hurry, and the female jurors are gauranteed to snort and start giving disapproving looks to their male peers, but more importantly they too will forget about listening to the evidence being presented.

CAUTION: Do NOT use any ofthese pens for yourself.

You should go with the ordinary Parkers, Sheaffers, Lamys etc for your own notes. Any of them will do fine by the way.

 

DISCLAIMER: Only fun amd pun was the intention of this mail. If you are a Lawyer reading this beleive me I love YOU in particular and all your colleagues, in general. This is the truth, the solemn truth and nothing but the truth, So Help Me God!

 

Good one. :clap1: However your ultimate submission in the Disclaimer as to professing to LOVE legal practitioners, you are reminded that LOVE is a two way path otherwise if it is one way the result is OBSESSION not love, now are there any obsessed persons contributing to the Fountain Pen Network. This is not be be taken as an admission that I am a lawyer.

Edited May 26, 2012 by Tom Aquinas

[kp288908]

sent a PM!

 

=)

[cvac]

I have to agree with Wjones on the fountain pen for law school issue. I went through law school recently (2010 grad at a "t14" school, transferred from a "no name" school by getting high grades FWIW), and there is no way I would've survived without a laptop. Most of what you will be doing is editing down class notes into something usable for an outline so you can study for exams. Being able to cut and paste and make edits quickly helps immensely. Additionally, typing speed matters a lot in law school come exam day as you will probably opt to type your exam. Sometimes the difference between falling on the right side of the curve or the wrong side simply comes down to how fast you type - I'm not joking.

 

Now, back in the day everyone in law school wrote notes by hand but everyone was in the same boat, so no one had a distinct advantage on that front. Sure, I hand-wrote notes in UG because I didn't own a laptop (neither did many of my classmates) but there was no way I would've done it in law school.

 

As far as the highlighters go, yeah they can be useful, but don't get caught up in the rainbow briefing method or anything like that. Law school isn't about briefing cases or digesting every single tiny piece of information in the casebooks or impressing the prof when you're called on. At end of the day the final is the ONLY thing that counts, and any energy you put towards anything that doesn't help prep you for the final is energy wasted. If you don't figure this out early on, you will when your first semester grades come back.

[bandbox]

I never used anything but fountain pens for taking notes in law school, but that was years ago - graduated in '71 - before laptops. As I recall, I used Lamys and very inexpensive calligraphy type pens that used cartridges. Cartridges were convenient in the classroom. Even in law practice, I continued my note taking with fountain pens. My favorite, which I still have, is a MB Meisterstuck 149; very large ink capacity was an advantage in the courtroom. I bought it over 35 years ago, and it's had a lot of use.

[alvarado]

I used Montblanc vintage 342 filled with Noodler's Bulletproof black to take notes. Sometimes according to mood, I will use my Rotring with Noodler's Blue Black. So far so good. But I am going to get a Lamy Al-Star (1.5mm) shortly

[Pen2009]

There are recommendations for TWSBI 540. Both of my regular clear 540 and amber 540 experienced the exactly similar QC issue with cracks in the barrel (near the piston nob. I am saddened with this. Since both of my clear and amber pens are afflicted with the similar QC issue, I came to the conculsion that there is something wrong with the mold or production. I have to admit TWSBI pens are cheap by my buying standard (as most of my pens are priced over $200 for the price of entry); but, even for a cheap pen like Lamy, I have not seen cracks in the barrel, until I had my TWSBIs.

[Tom Aquinas]

There are recommendations for TWSBI 540. Both of my regular clear 540 and amber 540 experienced the exactly similar QC issue with cracks in the barrel (near the piston nob. I am saddened with this. Since both of my clear and amber pens are afflicted with the similar QC issue, I came to the conculsion that there is something wrong with the mold or production. I have to admit TWSBI pens are cheap by my buying standard (as most of my pens are priced over $200 for the price of entry); but, even for a cheap pen like Lamy, I have not seen cracks in the barrel, until I had my TWSBIs.

I spoke with an old retired QC (Queens Counsel) about what pen he used in Law School 65 years ago and his response was a Parker 51, which he bought when demobbed from the Army after WW2, and he still used it, at last count it was on it's 9th nib. His comment any pen is suitable provided that it is reliable and comfortable . He also said :"Concentrate on Torts, not torturous studies into pens especially as this regretably is the day of the computer."

[amberleadavis]

Now that you have your pen, buy good paper.

 

I used these notebooks while in law school.

 

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/p/home-gift-large-spiral-black-miquel-ruis-journal/12619795?ean=9780765522399

 

http://img2.imagesbn.com/images/110950000/110951925.jpg

[amberleadavis]

Oh, and highlighters ...

 

I only used erasable highlighters when studying for the bar. You won't erase your books.

 

Buy multiple colors and some ink. I really like the Pentel HandyLineS. They are recycled and refillable.

 

 

http://www.pentel.com/store/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/490x/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/s/x/sxs15bp6m.png

[Tom Aquinas]

Now that you have your pen, buy good paper.

 

I used these notebooks while in law school.

 

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/p/home-gift-large-spiral-black-miquel-ruis-journal/12619795?ean=9780765522399

 

http://img2.imagesbn.com/images/110950000/110951925.jpg

Good advice. Put your notes in a bound book, they should not get mislaid as easy as loose A4 or foolscap.,ie under the rule in R-v- Murphy's Law.

[PDW]

I have to agree with Wjones on the fountain pen for law school issue. I went through law school recently (2010 grad at a "t14" school, transferred from a "no name" school by getting high grades FWIW), and there is no way I would've survived without a laptop. Most of what you will be doing is editing down class notes into something usable for an outline so you can study for exams. Being able to cut and paste and make edits quickly helps immensely. Additionally, typing speed matters a lot in law school come exam day as you will probably opt to type your exam. Sometimes the difference between falling on the right side of the curve or the wrong side simply comes down to how fast you type - I'm not joking.

 

Now, back in the day everyone in law school wrote notes by hand but everyone was in the same boat, so no one had a distinct advantage on that front. Sure, I hand-wrote notes in UG because I didn't own a laptop (neither did many of my classmates) but there was no way I would've done it in law school.

 

 

A long time ago I studied for an MSc. I would handwrite my notes in class, and then type them up into the computer in the evening. This meant I had to go through toe stuff again, sufficiently soon after hearing the lecture to fill in the gaps and scrawls in my notes. The repetition also helped me memorise it.

 

So, I'd advise an FP in class and a computer in the evening.

[Nova42]

I know it has been said, but I would recommend the TWSBI 540, especially if you plan on handwriting your notes, as it holds a lot of ink.

Edited June 3, 2012 by Nova42

[nickapos]

 

A long time ago I studied for an MSc. I would handwrite my notes in class, and then type them up into the computer in the evening. This meant I had to go through toe stuff again, sufficiently soon after hearing the lecture to fill in the gaps and scrawls in my notes. The repetition also helped me memorise it.

 

So, I'd advise an FP in class and a computer in the evening.

 

I do not know about the trend, but I have finished both my undergraduate and my postgraduate with my hand written notes. Afterward I had to type most of them in my computer since, my handwriting when I am in hurry is horrible.

I am sure one can type a lot faster than writting, but as PDW said, repetition is important for memorization and understanding, especially hand written repetition. It is my impression than when you type, the mind does not perceive the words you type as words, but as letter sequences, so it is more difficult to understand and memorize concepts.

It may be imagining things, but I do not think that I am wrong.

Edited June 3, 2012 by nickapos