A Moment of Reflection Part 2

Part 1

Part 2 was going to be expansive (and eloquent) dissection of the law school experience. "The Path of the Law" to quote Holmes, and the pitfalls of thinking that getting a JD is the answer to the proverbial question of "What should I do with my life?" These are important questions, and I decided to take some time to fully formulate my point view. If I was billing for the amount of time I thought about this since last Wednesday, I would have no need to take out a private loan next year. There is a lot of time to just think when you spend 11 hours driving in two days. So I was getting ready to espouse brilliance and caution into the blogosphere when . . .

Those bastages over at Barely Legal decide to update their blog for the first time in months over the weekend. Long story short, the lightning that my post was set to ignite, will not have its thunder heard for weeks, or months, or ever. So if you check out that site (as I am sure you all religiously do), you will pretty much get the point of what I was going write here.

However, there are some pretty important distinctions, which I will address now (there is no point in reprinting my entire e-mail to my sis, so I will hit the high points).

The e-mail from my sis stated that she was thinking about attending law school part-time. My response began with this query, To start with, why do you want to go law school?

This is the threshold question. Failure to provide an appropriate response to this, and the inquiry ends. In lawyer terms, for a court to hear a case, there must be a controversy. However, you will never hear a court explicitly state that a controversy exists, unless the decision is based on those grounds, and it is not that it is overlooked, it just becomes implicit. In determining why to go to law school, a prospective student will formulate a reason why, without digging deeper. The why becomes implicit and shoved into the background, to be forgotten until you become a 2L, with a chance to think, "Where are we going?" (or for you latin aficionados, Quo Vadimus).

The same arguments can be advocated for Undergrad. I have no reason for going to college other than it seemed like the next logical step. There is no why, it is just the next step. Law School should never be the next step without a clearly defined goal, whether it is being the next Vincent Bugliosi, Henry Hyde, or Frank Easterbrook (while understanding the road each path takes), or a just the desire to work for Legal Aid. Whatever the goal is, before going to law school, it should be clearly defined.

My sister told me that she had a desire to do something with IP finance, so I wrote to her that there had to be a better way to prepare herself for a career in IP issues without going to law school. Hell, a nice week long seminar could probably sum up the most important issues in IP law, or at least how it relates to what she wants to do.

Other than the poor reason for attending law school, I railed against attending law school part-time. What I did not mention in my e-mail, is possibly the best reason: The fact that when attending full-time you can go out drinking on a Wednesday night, then stay up until 5:30 a.m. arguing all sorts of semantics, and sleep through your nine o'clock class because you still have a couple absences to give. How would want to give this up? What I focused on in my writing to my sis was the burden she would have.

First, it is about five years to graduate i think. That is a lot of shot weekends. Second, with one or two, three hour classes a week, there is going to be a lot of reading. The general rule is for each hour in class, it is three outside of class. At least the first year. So if you take six credits (two classes, I am not sure exactly how many you would take), that is 18 hours (at least), for a total of 24, plus work. 64 hours in toto a week is not too bad.

I harken back to my first year, when I studied my ass off. Reading cases two or three times, and briefing them. That first year is a tough one. I could not imagine the first year lasting two years. The rigors of the first year provide a substantial benefit. You come to understand the process, how to read a case, whether or not you like it, you are learning to think like a lawyer. It becomes easier, but that first year is tough.

I could not imagine working full-time, going to law school part-time, and dealing with all this bullshit for the first time. You got to want it pretty bad. Which brings us full circle, back to the why.

Barely Legal penned a series of bad reasons to attend law school (I am too lazy to find the links, but it is around April '06 (I think), and I generally agree with them. Money, prestige, thinking one man can make a difference, are all too pretentious for but a few of us. Pragmatic reasons grounded in thoughtful decision-making are much more pertinent. Those reasons, are personal to everyone, and I will not bother to make a list.

I suppose now would be the time for me to list my reasons for attending law school, but I do not feel like it. They are still valid, and I still think I made the right decision (though feel free to ask if that holds true a year from now), and I am comfortable with that.

So, as for my moment of reflection, I am not ready to aim that mirror on myself just yet, but I will happily point it in your direction.

A Moment of Reflection Part 1

So, my iPod just crapped out on me. My computer decided that it did not want to transfer songs to it anymore. I blame my computer, because it is a piece of shit, and not my iPod, which fucking rules. So, I had to restore my iPod, which means erasing everything and loading everything back onto it. However, after I erased, iTunes popped up a question that gave me pause.

It asked me to name my iPod.

My iPod already had a name, and now, I had the privilege of deciding whether or not to rename it. I could have stuck with the old name, its original name (though I never refer to it by this name, it has always been "My iPod," which may be a bit derogatory, but since my iPod cannot think, it is not protected by the 14th amendment), or picked a new, more relevant name. For instance, if you have a baby and name it "Stan," that may be perfectly appropriate at the time, but after a month or two, you may think that a better name would be "spit-up monster that just won't shut-up." I suppose it is a good thing that we get only one chance to name our kids.

But since my iPod was never birthed out of something I had intimate contact with, I feel that a name change is possible. Because the first time I plugged my iPod into my computer, I had to name it, so I came up with the thing that was on my mind at the time.

"Donkey Porn"

O.K., that was not it. I have never willingly looked at donkey porn before in my life. No, I bought my iPod back in the summer of aught four, when I was full of promise, my whole life ahead of me, and my head full of chemicals. At some point that summer, I had made the decision to go to law school, come hell or high water (had I known either would be better . . .). So at that time my life was focused on the future. Certainly, it was not on the present. I was working a blue collar job, a night job, where I had some authority, but no real responsibility. Plus a kick ass salary (hey $14+ an hour to surf the web was pretty good pay, as I "supervised" a bunch of guys). Sadly, that was not good enough for me, and I had my heart set on law school. Though it was about three months before I could start applying, I was focused on getting in.

So after the July 4th week, when I had worked 160 hours in two weeks, I decided to splurge, thanks to all of the overtime I had worked. And that resulted in the iPod I currently own, hell, when you are working $400 does not seem like that much money.

So back to the point, I named my iPod "Law School Bitch." I forgot the comma, it was supposed to be "Law School, Bitch" as in, I am going to go to law school in spite of you iPod. See, despite my 153 on the LSAT, I fully intended to make law school my bitch, and thankfully, my lack of any meaningful life experience combined with my inability to sell a damn thing (i.e. my personal statement) resulted in me only being accepted to a handful of schools, none of which has ever produced a Supreme Court justice (and maybe a handful of federal appellate judges) (what I am getting at is that I had a choice between crap #1, crap #2 and crap #3). This however, did enable me to make law school my bitch. I was looking over my transcript tonight, and I was like damn, what the hell am I doing here (the main reason I did not transfer was because I wanted two years on law review, screw what the firms want, that is something that I wanted).

So enough with the self-congratulatory bullshit (what is this, the Oscars?), the point is, I had to decide whether or not to rename my iPod. When I got the damn thing, law school was the goal, but now, I have no clue what my goal is. I could fail every class I still have to take and end up with a C GPA (remember, law school is front-loaded in the first year, and you get no credit when you fail a class, I think, I should check on that). So I know I can do well here, that is no longer a goal. I will be published in my school's law review journal, so that is no longer a goal. The three things I wanted to accomplish when I went to law school have been done (granted getting a good job is not something that really was a goal, I figured 1+2+3=6 figures, but I am not close to that).

Back when I named my iPod, I saw my future. Now, I am not sure what I see. So I regret going to law school? I do not think so, there was not much going on for me when I made the decision to go to law school. But all of that was put into perspective when my older sister e-mailed me saying, " hey brother, I need your advice on law school. do you think I could go part-time and do a good job?"


My response coming, some point in the future

Looks Good . . . On Paper

If you really like it you can have the rights,
It could make a million for you overnight,
If you must return it you can send it here,
But I need a break,
And I want to be a paperback writer,
Paperback writer.

--Paperback Writer—The Beatles

I am the paper candidate.

I look good on paper. Well, at least when I am not writing a story about my drunken idiocy anyway. But I digress. I have fairly good credentials. I have the proper class rank, one of the two MVEC (Most Valuable Extra-Circulars), too many CALI’s, and even a scholarship (just got that one). I have two years of experience in the business world, where I supervised 20 other people. I have solved problems and fired people (sometimes solving a problem by firing someone). I even did some consulting for a small business.

All this looks nice, when it is written in my usual eloquent style, dressed up with pretty bullet points and dashes, as well as some right justification. Yeah, my resume is pretty sweet. Combine that with some bond paper, and you begin to crack at a smile at my awesomeness. Throw in a dash of cover letter and a transcript, and you may begin to drool. Add in my writing sample, and you will go into full blown Cujo mode.

It seems like every year, for at least the past five, at the beginning of the baseball season, all the beat writers are in agreement. The Yankees are the best team. On Paper. All the talent in the world. No one could ever beat them in RBI Baseball. And because of this, for the past five years, 90% of the writers pick the Yanks to be in The Series. But there is a reason they play the games. Guys get hurt. Randy Johnson suddenly looks old for the first half of the year. Giambi is on the Cream and the Clear. Sheffield too probably. A-Rod does not get along with his teammates, probably because the answers the hotel door at 1 a.m. wearing a pressed shirt, suit and tie. Mike Mussina is getting too old. They have no closer. Jeter is . . . well, Jeter (oh wait, dating Mariah Carey, I just thought of that).

You get the idea. You see your team on paper, and get excited. Then they do not come through. The Yanks have not done shit the last five years (excluding this year, where they are probably winning the division as I type). Take my team for instance, the Cubbies. I thought they would take the world by storm this year. Wood, Prior, Lee, Barrett, Walker, Murton, Pierre, Dumpster (I mean Dempster), and a couple other guys. Lee had his breakout year last year, Barrett was poised to have his this year (which he did, until he suffered internal bleeding in his scrotum. Seriously). On paper, the Cubs looked good. But right now, they are the worst team in the National League. I feel like the Cubs.

As much as I love to write (do not be fooled by the lack of updates the past week), I hate to talk. And I really hate talking about myself. Oh, I can write about myself. That is easy, maybe because I can revise things. But I have never been one to tell stories, or be the life of the party, or engage a person I have never met before. Socializing is not my bag.

Add in having to talk to people I have never met about my greatness, and make it seem like I am actually that great (which I am not), and then seem like I genuinely am interested to learn more about their firm, when all I want to say is, “Give me a fucking job, and you will not be disappointed.” I am sick of the dance. I was actually sick of it before I had my first one.

But because I am the paper candidate, I have plenty of opportunities to make a fool of myself, as I mumble along, trying to make sense of things that really do not make sense. For instance, when an interviewer asks me, “What did you do last summer?” what am I supposed to say? “I worked a shitty job for two months, before I got hammered one night and decided to quit. My goal was to read 40 books over the summer, but I only read about 20. I did drink a great deal, which lead to some pretty good posts on my blog.” Actually, I think I will say that in my interview tomorrow if they ask. But that is not what they want to hear. They want a legitimate excuse for why I had no legal job, when I clearly had the qualifications to get one. Of course, by the end of the interview, they are not wondering that anymore.

This is not a total rag on myself. I will admit that I am doing head and shoulders above what I did last year, but it still is no where near where it should be. I suppose that it is all just practice.

See, the grand confession is that I have never, ever (well, at least since I worked at a Deli in college) gotten a job that I had a face to face interview for. My job in the business world was a phone interview. The other ones, I kind of lucked into, or they were so desperate, I walked in and was hired.

Actually, tomorrow I am going to go in to my interview with my laptop and pretend that I am deaf. That way, I can just type out all of my answers. I like this plan. (Plus it adds the threat of a lawsuit.)

Note: It is not that I am fooling myself. I know that my interviewers do not look at my resume until about one minute before they meet me