Oriented

The final day of orientation was the day the faculty and upper level students tried to get real about what law school was about. We learned we should be working 60 hours/week as law students (including class and study time), and that this was considered a normal work week for most people and should leave us plenty of time to have happy and full lives. Um, excuse me!? Have you ever heard of the 40-hour work week? Guess not.

The day began with a student organizations "breakfast" where I was glad to see there's a good mix of options for those inclined toward public interest and social justice. The Equal Justice Foundation, the American Constitution Society, and the National Lawyers Guild were all represented, plus there's an Environmental Law Association and a group called "Street Law" that sends law students into DC public schools to teach kids about the law. It's not AU's Marshall-Brennan Fellowship Program, but it's a start.

The rest of the day consisted of advice from upper-level students (most of which I've heard and discussed here before), and advice from select faculty, much of it along the lines of the Dean's welcome: We have an obligation to use wisely the power we are going to gain in law school. A highlight was superstar Jonathon Turley's entertaining performance in which he argued that the difference between good lawyers and crap lawyers is that the good lawyers like what they're doing. According to Turley, the secret to being successful in the practice of law is taking time early in law school to explore your options and find the area of law that excites you the most, rather than following the hordes into the area of law that pays the most. Amen to that.

The day was capped with a "Dean's Reception" featuring free finger food, punch, beer, wine, and all the awkward conversation you could stomach. It didn't take long for me to get my fill of that, so while I suspect the hordes spent their last evening before the start of classes conducting various bonding and mating rituals (lubricated, I'm guessing, with generous amounts of cold beverages), I spent mine at Politics and Prose listening to Jim Hightower explain why he's optimistic about the potential of the grassroots to reverse the avalanche of bad policies being created by the Bush administration and a spineless Democratic party (also known in Hightower-speak as "wobblycrats"). It was a good talk, made better because the crowd was huge and lively. I found myself thinking how refreshing it seemed to be out of the law school and in the "real" world. Then I realized: School hasn't even started yet and I'm already glad when I can get away! Should this tell me something?

But I'm not going to dwell on that. The transition from a life of leisure to a life of work and responsibility is always hard, regardless of what comprises that work and responsibility. Class starts today—in a couple of hours, actually—and I'm ready to go. One of the first cases we had to read for Civil Procedure was US ex rel. Gerald May v. Satan and His Staff, in which the plantiff

alleges that Satan has on numerous occasions caused plaintiff misery and unwarranted threats, against the will of the plaintiff, that Satan has placed deliberate obstacles in plaintiffs path and has caused plaintiff's downfall.

Plaintiff alleges that by reason of these acts Satan has deprived him of his constitutional rights.

I'm not kidding. I can't wait to hear what the professor has to say about this. To quote the exuberant opening line from "No One's Leaving" by Jane's Addiction ("Ritual de lo Habitual"): "Here we go!"

Posted August 21, 2003 07:27 AM | law school