Plan B

The new school year is just about upon us. Students across the United States will be back in classes in seven days, including yours truly. This week, as I wind down the very final days of summer and try to get back into the school mind-set, I have been spending some time considering my classmates. You see, law school attracts some interesting people (in all senses of the word) and I’ve missed some of those buggers over the past few months. So to celebrate their general awesomeness/entertainment value I bring you this non-exhaustive list of all the people you will ever meet in law school! (It’s non-exhaustive primarily so I can recycle the idea next time I am too lazy to come up with a real topic. Also, full disclaimer, I got my inspiration from this piece, which is both more original and funnier.)

Enjoy, and be sure to let me know who I’ve missed and where you fit.

Hello my friends, it has been a while. I’m finally done with my first summer of pretending to be a lawyer, which means exactly two things: 1) I have time to blog again and 2) I can now definitively say that being in law school is not very similar to actually being a part of the legal world. Also I drank a lot of coffee. But that wasn’t really anything new.

This weeks post is, therefore, born of a combination of the first two things. Because I’m now convinced, more than ever, that there is one essential task that every single LSAT student should undertake before they fill out their applications:

Figure out what a lawyer does.

Here we are, halfway through July, and for some of you it is less than a month away from THE START OF THE REST OF YOUR LIFE. Yep, for students starting 1L in mid to late August, we are officially in the seventh inning stretch. On the other hand, for those of us soon to be starting 2L, we are halfway through recovering from the miseries of last year, while eagerly anticipating the good parts we’ll get to relive next.

For those of you studying for the LSAT… enough wasting time, get back to it.

Today, as a tribute to these waning days of the world as we know it, I’ve once again reached out to my favorite pre-L, (who will soon enough know just as much about law school as I do) James Swift. This time he shared with me ten of his biggest fears (which, to his credit, all look pretty familiar), and I agreed to either debunk them, or at least provide the best advice I could.

Today I am writing about a reoccurring fear I have. That’s right, at least for the week, I’m shunning unauthorized advice, seriatim descriptions and even pie charts for the sake of addressing a subject seriously and somberly. With YouTube clips. Well one YouTube clip. But a serious YouTube clip. Ok not really.

But I am talking about a reoccurring fear. You see, the legal world is often regarded as a rather conservative universe, and it seems that conformity is the norm. Lawyers are expected to look the same, behave similarly and follow parallel paths toward comparable goals. I sometimes wonder if law school is really just the real life version of the Play Doh spaghetti maker. We spent the last twenty odd years making ourselves into these different and colorful masterpieces, which we proudly showed to our big sister, law school. And she went Oh how nice and picked out all the best pieces, and for a moment we were so gratified… but then the stupid bitch decided she wanted some fake linguini, threw us all into the same tank, cranked the handle, and out came a big brown blob of sameness.

Ah summer, so full of warm weather and relative freedom. (Unless you’re taking an LSAT course… then it’s so full of warm weather and THE BEST TEST EVER!) However, this week’s post is not as much for the current LSAT takers, as it is for my friends who will be joining me as 1Ls at law schools across the nation within the next sixty-five days. As my legal ducklings gear up for the July 4th weekend, and hopefully a month+ of idleness to follow, I thought they might want some input into how that time could be best spent to prepare for their upcoming 1L adventure. I mean, it’s still a little early to buy your trapper keeper (the good back to school sales never start until mid-August) so what’s a future law student to do in the meantime?

Well what follows are my humble suggestions. Or at least the suggestions I feel comfortable publishing online. As for the ones I don’t… well, you can use your imagination.

First off, congratulations to everyone who just recently took that pesky little LSAT. Don’t worry, with a few minor exceptions, the worst is behind you… now it’s time to sit back and- wait.

As you settle into one of the longest waits of your life, you may be wondering if you will ever again use all that information you spent the last few months learning, practicing and living. Well this is where I swoop in to assure you, it is not completely irrelevant to your future!

I mean, probably about 99.97% will never again matter (except for the part where you get an awesome LSAT score and TONS OF BJs). Maybe even 99.98%. But there will be that at least 0.02% of the rest of your life where you find yourself thinking, “Golly, I’m glad I learned that on the LSAT.”

What will that 0.02% look like? Well read on, and enjoy.

Ah yes, 1L is done. Finished. Every final has been submitted, every paper written. My grades are in the hands of God, and I’ve started my summer internship. It has been a long journey, indeed.

Although to be honest, it really hasn’t. It turns out that law school is pretty similar to, well, any other sort of school. There were small differences. For example, this past year gave me my first chance to tango with the Socratic method. And what a dance it was. Plus the people were a little older, the parties a little calmer and the work was taken a little more seriously this time around. Overall, though, 1L was nothing special.

So assuming you’ve already experienced some level of higher education (and if you haven’t, it’s going to be at least four years until my blog becomes remotely relevant) law school shouldn’t be a total mystery. At the start of the semester you will go to every class, vow to read every page assigned and color-code your trapper keeper. By the end you will be skimming cases on the subway, having already slept through torts, and jotting notes on whatever napkin or other vaguely papery surface you can find. Nothing new.

However, there is one big difference. This degree isn’t necessary. Unlike earning your high school diploma and bachelors, law school is not a choice to be made simply because it’s “what you do”. Instead, it’s a degree that you get because you want to be a lawyer. The problem is, of course, how the hell do you know if you want to be a lawyer?

For the second time in less than a month, I bring you a post about grades. However, as I’ve said before, the topic has been a pretty strong under current since starting. So, as I wrap up my 1L experience, I share with you the two things I wish I knew before starting, and the one question we all still have.
Disclaimer: You will not believe a word of this post until after you have finished your first year. Don’t worry, I wouldn’t have either.

Grades are arbitrary.

Ok, so that’s not an entirely true statement. After all, there are people who get straight As. Since most of us (for example, me) don’t get straight As (in fact, we consider ourselves lucky if we get a single A), the students who can get an A in every single class are clearly better at law school than the rest of us. Also they are mutants. So don’t let it bother you.

It is officially finals season again at law school, which means that for the next few weeks I’m studying just as hard as all you LSAT takers out there, if not harder. And of course I’m forced each morning to confront that age-old question: the public or the private? Do I study at home, where I’m constantly tempted by my bed, TV and extensive romantic comedy DVD collection? Or at the library, which is chock full of strangers and shiny objects?

It’s a tough call, but usually I need to get out of my apartment. Otherwise, what starts with me sitting at the kitchen table with my books, highlighters and outlines ready to go ends with me fast asleep on the couch, half eaten bag of Cheetos on my stomach, taking an 11:30 AM “nap” while Turner Classic Movies drones in the background. This is not an ideal way to learn the law.

So you may have heard that there are some worries about the legal job market right now. On the other hand, you may have locked yourself into your panic room at the first shudder of Bear Stearns (way back in the aughts) and are just now be stepping back out into the sun, blinking away tears, and stopping first at MSS. If that’s the case, I advise you to round up some more freeze dried food and other necessities and relock that steel door. For at least another half a decade.

Those of you who have been out in the real world, though, probably have some inkling that things are not great for recent law graduates. Of course, I have no better idea than you about what’s going on in the real world, and read all the same blogs and other internet garbage to get my information second hand. So I will leave the discussion about how the world actually is to those who know better than I do.