As he worked his way through the law school curriculum, he says, "Every semester I had a class that dramatically shifted how I think about law, or gave me a much deeper understanding of the difficulties of law." He lists some of the different approaches he encountered: law and economics, cultural analysis, "sympathetic discussions of the role of law in people's lives," "systemic stuff," and "fun stuff."
Amidst this "riot of perspectives," Grimmelmann maintained his focus on law and technology through his major writing projects. His substantial paper examined the legal systems internal to online communities--he calls it his "virtual worlds paper." Grimmelmann says, "It grew out of International Business Transactions, actually--treating these large online games as being separate countries." In his SAW he wrote about "regulation by software--how we can use software and computers to control human conduct, what you gain and lose by doing that instead of using legal techniques."
He was also a student fellow of the Information Society Project, editor-in-chief of LawMeme, and a member of The Yale Law Journal.
Grimmelman did step back from his books and computers from time to time, and he says he has made great friends during law school, especially with some of the people who were in his first-term small group. "I don't know if it's random or carefully thought out, but however they picked the people to go together, it's had a great result," he says.
Grimmelman clerked for a federal judge after graduation, but his long term aim is to find an academic position in law and technology. He used his time in law school to good effect by generating a torrent of ideas. "I have a long list of things that I want to get to work on," Grimmelmann says. "I'd like to turn my SAW into a book... and I have more paper ideas that grew out of the virtual worlds paper that I want to get down."