Last Class
Last night was my last substantive class in law school. From here on out, everything until the bar exam is review. It’s hard to believe that I now have a “complete” legal education. I keep wanting to go down to the law school, grab a professor’s arm, and say, “Wait, wait. Is that all? There isn’t anything else you need to tell me? There isn’t anything else I’m supposed to know before you give me a J.D. and send me off to take the bar exam? Are you serious? They let idiots like me into this thing?”
Those of you (mostly family) who have not been to law school or are not lawyers have no idea what this is like. You all say (and will probably keep saying) things like, “Oh, you’ll do fine.” Sorry, but no matter how many times you say that, no matter how much you mean it, no matter how right you think you are, it brings no comfort.
But those of you who are my classmates and colleagues, you know what I am talking about. You know about something my buddy and I came up with when we gave our seminars on torts to the first-year classes the last two fall semesters; you know about The Fear.
If you are a law student facing the bar exam, then the growing balance on your student loans, weighed against your immediately foreseeable earning ability, and added to the shameful prospect of not passing the bar exam makes that phrase “a fate worse than death” sound pretty meaningful.
During my first year of law school, everything was new. I had zero experience with law. Every new idea felt like one of those blue pills from The Matrix. Turned me into a blue pill junkie. During my second year, I felt more like I was drowning in my sleep than waking up to a new reality. Now, at the end of my third year, with only three final exams left before I have to start studying for the bar exam in earnest, it all seems rather flat and confined and nowhere near enough.
At least maybe in August I’ll get the chance to read a book without having to worry about some sadistic professor getting his jollies from grilling me on how I analyzed the text.
I guess we could say, “You’ll be crappy at being a lawyer and you probably won’t pass the bar exam” if that makes you feel better. If people choose to believe in you, maybe they have a reason, whether there is The Fear or not. If you were us, you might find yourself in the same position of believing in the ability of the said person even if they don’t believe you.
By the way. Congrats on finishing law school….I had my doubts
: P
Damn, it’s been three years already? Time sure flies when you’re reading a law school student’s blog. I’m not so sure how time moves - or whether it moves - when you’re writing a law school student’s blog.
What I want to know is should I show up to your law school graduation wearing the shark costume AND play the first few bars of the theme to Jaws or just play the theme to Jaws?
Hmmmm…decisions, decisions…
Congratulations