Inspired by a little taste of civil disobedience this morning*, and thinking of bright new law students everywhere embarking on this grand adventure, I thought I would include a few thoughts about the law school experience in my inaugural blog. Four earnest observations I have made these past two years, in no particular order. These are truisms for me, though they may not be for you, and I am certainly not the first or last 3L with a top-four claim to the secrets of legal education. Nevertheless, I wish to articulate these tidbits in the hopes that any or all of you can enter the profession as yourself as opposed to a shell-shocked pre-fab known quantity.

Please note that I am not going to tell you how to “succeed” in law school. According to most articles I have read on that topic, I am a failure. So, here’s how I failed at law school.

TRUISM 1: They do not know something you don’t

I spent most of 1L wondering why things operated a certain way. Why grades mattered so much, why grades were predicated on a single incomprehensible exam, what the exam or grades had to do with professional capacity, why I had to worry so much about finding an amazing internship, what the rule against perpetuities meant (not in the grand scheme of things, but actually what it meant). I had been out in the non-academic world for a while, and no one had ever asked me for my GPA. I understood everything in all my classes, really well, but fell comfortably around the middle of the curve. Was there something I was missing about what it takes to be a lawyer?

The only thing I could think was that the administration, professors, and staff knew something about what it takes to train a lawyer and to work in the profession which I, obviously, did not know. I gave an alarming (for me) amount of deference that first year to the edicts and opinions of those working in legal education. Looking back, I definitely should have been more skeptical. I am not saying that you should believe you know better in all instances – I assure you, you do not. But you know yourself better in all instances – I assure you, they do not. If the way things are done is at odds with your world view, trust yourself. I spent too much time thinking I would be a mediocre lawyer because I sat square in the middle of the institutional assessment. Do not let that assessment become your world view.

TRUISM 2: It has been my experience that being proudly pro-RJ will not negatively impact your options

Note the very specific wording of this truism, because it is intended to erode a very law school mentality: all paths to a rewarding career are established and mandatory. “It has been my experience” means that I know what worked for me, and I have no idea what works for you (no one does). “Your options” means a whole world is waiting for you, without qualification.

Keeping that in mind, prepare yourself for the counterargument, courtesy of the following interpretive generalization regarding career guidance (be it from staff, hiring attorneys, professors, anecdotes, or other students): You must aim high. To be successful, you must work at the most super amazing firm, clerk for the Supreme Court, or nab the greatest fellowship of all time. To get there, you must put forward the most widely desirable candidacy, with an unassailable resume anyone can get behind. To do that, you must be on Law Review, you must be in the top 25% of your class, and you must have a wide range of noncontroversial extracurricular activities. I had absolutely none of those things. I have never had a problem finding a job. I firmly believe that musts are simply harmful yet pervasive attempts to motivate, and the only must that matters is this one: you must ignore the “one true path” in all its manifestations.

For non-1Ls, you don’t have to feel bad admitting it if you hesitated to put LSRJ on your resume. I know how proud you are of it; however, I also know why you hesitated, or even (as happened with me) why someone told you not to do it. I am not questioning your passion, or sanctimoniously tsk-tsking, I am simply using you and I as examples of the overwhelming and omnipresent culture of fear and musts. Trust me, I spent two years in the vortex right next to you (and don’t know yet if I’ve ever quite broken free). Which leads me to my next truism . . .

TRUISM 3: Don’t panic

Alright, so I borrowed that one from Douglas Adams, but I have found it to be incredibly useful (carrying around a towel, not so much). This one transcends legal institutions and branches out into the way new lawyers are hired. Clerks, interns, and associates can be hired 10 to 20 months in advance. I have way too many memories of law school that solely include anxiously filling out applications and absolutely dreading rejections. What a waste. of. time.

Law school is graduate school. You are receiving a tailored education to prepare you for the legal profession. Law school is not the imposing gateway to a successful and rewarding life; it is the predicate a potential job market. If your job ends up awesome or awful, you will equally regret the amount of time you spent worrying about it in school. I will never forget one question which Jill Adams put to the keynote panel at LSRJ’s 2010 Leadership Institute. She asked each of the amazing and accomplished panelists to think of what identities they would ascribe to themselves. After a brief pause, she asked if any of them thought of “lawyer” and, if so, what relative rank that identity had in the mix. It was obvious that none of them had either thought of it or given it very high marks. I always remember that moment when I get caught up in the culture of fear and musts – this is not who I am, so why am I valuing myself based on my career?

TRUISM 4: If you can’t do it like they do it, do it like you do it

I think the supplements publishers might come after me for this one, so let me resort to plain old mathematics in lieu of rhetoric. IT’S A CURVE (unless it’s not, and lucky you). Where everyone is pretty much as good as everyone else, grades become arbitrary. The curve creates a more defensible range. This range is somehow important. If you are not in the top of this range, and you would like to be, do what you can to get there. If you do all you can to get there, and you still aren’t there, it’s not a character flaw – how could it be? The curve is as impersonal as it gets. It does not tell you how well you did, it tells you how well you did compared to everyone else, and being different than everyone else is not a character flaw.

When I realized my place in the curve, and when I worked incredibly hard and unsuccessfully to rise above that place in the curve, I took a look around. I am “smarter” than and “dumber” than half the people in this class – but according to what standard? See Truism 1: it’s not the “standard” of what it takes to be a good lawyer. See Truism 2: it’s not the “standard” required to have a successful and rewarding career. See Truism 3: it’s not the “standard” consistent with my individual worth. I don’t know what the standard is, I only know that my ability to conform to that standard is 50% better and worse than the people around me. So I’ll just keep doing that.

*My morning dose of civ dis, in case you were curious: imagine a group of 3Ls covertly distributing copies of “Legal Education and the Reproduction of Hierarchy” to incoming 1Ls. You can check out the short version at http://duncankennedy.net/legal_education/essays.html.

Sara Taylor

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 8th, 2010 at 1:59 am and is filed under law, law school. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.