Thread by @dilanesper

This looks cute and I look forward to reading it.

But I it's a mistake to talk about extensions, even regularly granted ones, as a norm in litigation practice. Litigators who rely on extensions and don't anticipate workloads to meet deadlines eventually commit malpractice. 1/

https://twitter.com/s_james_s/status/1436683768971026435

Extensions are ALWAYS a function of (1) whether you have a jerk on the other side of a case, (2) whether your side has acted like a jerk in litigating the case (either you, some other lawyer, or your client), (3) whether your judge is a jerk, and (4) whether you deserve one. 2/

Notice what I listed last. That's right, there are situations where you don't really deserve extensions and get them, and situations where you acted in a professional manner and get screwed. 3/

But more importantly, I'm going to say this, based on 26 years of law practice as well as having many times asked for and sometimes received extensions myself- there has RARELY been a situation where an extension could not have been avoided with better planning. 4/

We are humans. We aren't perfect. And busy litigation schedules are tough to manage, especially because things happen. But nonetheless, when you end up needing an extension on a brief, it's usually because you started it too late or made bad assumptions. 5/

Then, having left yourself too little margin for error, bad things happen and you have to ask. But you wouldn't have had to ask in the first place if you managed your time better. 6/

Indeed, there have been many times where I have NOT needed an extension despite stuff going wrong on my end- losing a document in a computer crash, a colleague getting sick, a witness not reviewing a declaration- because I got ahead of the task and had some time to spare. 7/

And because of that, with the utmost respect, I question Prof. Schendel's pedagogical aims here. Believe me, again, in 26 years of practice, lawyers are not shy about asking for extensions. Indeed, I get the feeling law students aren't either. They don't need to be taught that 8/

In contrast, getting ahead of things, managing time better, and giving yourself room for pitfalls are skills many people do not have. And one of the ways you learn this is by having a hard-ass professor (it can be undergrad as well as law school) who holds you to the deadlines 9/

I can't help thinking that there's a bit of motivated reasoning here. No professor wants to be a hard-ass. Again, we are human beings. We want to be nice. We want the people we work with to like us. I'm sure professors want students to like them too. 10/

But sometimes you get the best educations from the people who set high expectations from you and are willing to run the risk you might not like them so much. And that's certainly going to be true with time management. 11/

And as I said, my ultimate fear is NOT about attachment to some "tough" mode of education. It's for clients. They pay us lots of money. They entrust their lives to us. We owe them good time management skills. Because when we screw up, they are the ones who can suffer. 12/

So I think law professors should consider this as a sort of counterpoint to the paper. When you insist on that deadline, the student might hate you, but you might be inculcating the discipline that makes sure that habeas petition gets in on time 15 years down the line. End/