« February 01, 2004 - February 07, 2004 | Main | February 15, 2004 - February 21, 2004 »
DC Primary
DC had a first in the nation "preference poll" on January 13th, which Howard Dean won by a mile. Unfortunately, that didn't really count for a whole lot, so tomorrow DC has its real caucus, which does count, albeit for very little (three delegates, I think). Anyway, find your polling place and please vote!
Better still, vote for Dean! Here's why you should: You gotta believe.
UPDATE: After you vote, why not sign the Million for Marriage petition? It's an easy and painless way to show that the Constitution doesn't need any "marriage protection" amendments, thanks.
UPDATE II: Vote for Dean, Punk.
Posted 12:04 PM | election 2004
Online Good and Bad
The good: Joe Trippi has started his own blog.
The bad: The Washington Post has begun requiring online readers to register. I was going to start subscribing for Sunday-only delivery, but now I'm not so sure. This stinks. I had begun to rely on the Post for a good source of "free" online news that didn't require all the stupid stuff that the NY Times or LA Times or other major papers require. Oh well; BBC and Yahoo are still "free."
Posted 07:56 AM | meta-blogging
What Better Profession?
In response to Transmogriflaw's post about brief-writing, and Legal Undeground's post about Richard Ford, Stay of Execution once again offers a tantalizing gem of insight into what it's like to practice law, and why it can sometimes, well, suck.
Sherry's whole post is certainly worth reading (and it's not long), but here's the heart of it for me: After explaining that the key to a good brief is to separate your own feelings from your client's interests, Sherry writes:
When Evan asks the rhetorical question of what's not to like in this profession, that would be my answer. We stop being principals in the world and act instead as the agents of other people. We defend their positions, not our own. We look out for their interests, zealously. We articulate their arguments, not ours, even though it is we who are coming up with those arguments. It requires something that on one hand is pretty cool -- a precise ability to parse out arguments and set aside emotion, to be extremely clear about just who you represent at any moment and just what is and is not their (and therefore your) concern right now. It is the essence of that mysterious "thinking like a lawyer" phrase that sort of happens to you sometime late in 1L year. But on the other hand it is an abdication sometimes of our own agency, our own voice. And that is something I still struggle with sometimes.
That may be the best argument I've yet heard for doing everything you possibly can to find a legal job that fits you, rather than one that just pays well or gives you prestige or credentials or whatever. Does job satisfaction directly correspond with the degree to which your client's values and interests match your own?
Beyond that, I find this description of lawyers as split selves -- one self that advocates zealously for the clients' interests, one that lives the rest of the lawyer's life -- just a little disturbing at the moment, making me wonder yet again: Is this really the life I want to live?
Perhaps I'm just scared of something -- the debt, the pressure, the stress of practice. But the context of Evan's question (the question to which Sherry was responding) raises two other possibilities. Evan wrote:
So maybe I don't really want to pay the money and serve the time to get the degree. Or maybe I'm just unimaginative.
Oooorrrr..... maybe I should quit thinking about things like this and do my reading, brief-writing, and mock trial preparation. Yeah, maybe.
Posted 06:47 AM | Comments (1) | law general law school
She's now a Rockstar
Congratulations to Bekah, who just took what sounds like a dream job.
Posted 05:58 AM | law school
VD
Valentine's Day. Ready or not, here it comes. But there's no need to give Hallmark any more of your money. Instead, download one of the amazing cards at YouYesYou [link via SuperD], or send an e-card from Meish.
Dropping them a couple of bucks via PayPal only takes a few seconds and will greatly increase the chances you'll get whatever it is you're longing for this v-day.
Posted 05:07 AM | life generally
Dubious Honor
Thanks to Falconred, I've learned that ai is currently the number one Google search result for "law school sucks." This is a dubious honor, at best. I mean, law school does, in many ways, suck, I certainly don't think ai is the best resource for people looking for more information on that particular search string. Sure, I do complain about law school pretty much all the time, but I'm sure many other people out there are doing a much better job. Can you recommend any good candidates to which I can redirect these sad searchers?
Posted 06:30 AM | Comments (1) | law school
Not Waving, Drowning
Only a year ago it seems I was already thinking about what I would do if I found that law school sucks. Unfortunately, the helpful comments I linked to on that day over at Nikki, Esq. are gone (scroll down to Feb 7 to see where they were), because Nikki has closed up shop. The problem with relying on blogs (or any web site, really) to save information -- they can disappear any time and without notice. Will ai one day just be a bunch of links to nowhere?
But I'm not finding that law school sucks, exactly, I've just been trying to get some perspective on it. Perhaps that perspective is too much to ask at this point, while I'm in the middle of it, juggling obligations and, to borrow a metaphor from the inimitable Famous P., waiting for the train. So meanwhile, here are two point five questions for anyone with experience in this stuff or an opinion or a thought:
1. Should a 1L really try to write on to law review, or would my time be better spent trying to get a note published? (Part of the context of this question is Stay of Execution's argument that law review is a waste of time, and Legal Underground's counterargument that it's worth it.)
1.5. Can anyone recommend a good online source for journal notes so that I can read some examples before making the decision on #1, above?
2. Do all 1Ls compete in all these damned competitions (ADR, Client Counseling, Mock Trial, Moot Court, um, what else?), or am I just at an insane school? Another option: Am I just insane?
Posted 06:50 AM | Comments (5) | law school
Maine Caucus: First Person
Sherry offers a great first-hand account of at least one of the caucuses yesterday in Maine. Plus, she's going to be a delegate for Dean at Maine's state convention in May. Although I can understand there are plausible reasons for others to abandon Dean, you can still call me mad cow.
Posted 02:26 PM | election 2004
Pants on Fire
You know, I'm trying focus elsewhere, but Bush's Meet the Press interview yesterday was just so full of big fat lies it demands at least a mention. For a blow-by-blow account of just how completely disingenuous Bush was being, see Claim vs. Fact: The President on Meet the Press from the Center for American Progress. As Ron Suskind said the other night on Real Time with Bill Maher, the Bush administration has a big problem with facts. The administration seems to not understand that you can only ignore, deny, or lie about the facts for so long before they eventually catch up with you. At least we have to hope so...
UPDATE: More on the "interview" from David Corn and Katrina vanden Heuvel at The Nation.
Posted 07:01 AM | general politics
Sunday Morning
The weekend supposedly means a chance to breathe again. The pace of this semester has seemed to ratchet up on an almost daily basis, to the point where I spend almost no time with L., no time for proper correspondence, no time to step back and try to see what's happening outside my little world of school and politics and school and school. Even my supposed dog just sniffs at me when I come in the door, "Oh, it's just you," then walks away.
About this time a year ago, I was giddy with relief and pride and happiness because I'd finally been granted admission to a couple of law schools. Oh for those halcyon days of yore! Excitement about law school, where have you gone?
Ok. I can't resist melodrama. Law school isn't bad, exactly, it's just a whole lot more tedium and work than anticipating law school was. To be honest, hardly a day has passed since school started last August that I haven't thought about leaving. "You gotta get out of here" is sort of like a broken record in my head. I'd probably think that meant something if I hadn't lived with some form of it for nearly my entire life. Ambivalence is a curse, unless it's a virtue. ;-)
So today, well into second semester, I don't think it was a mistake to come here (D.C.) and do this (law school), but I don't think it was the right thing to do either. Call me a world-champion second-guesser, but as L. seems to move closer every day toward the kind of writing career I've always dreamed about but thought impossible, I can't help but think how ridiculous it was for me to think law school was a good idea. I think about this for a while every day or so, then I quickly drown it out with the myths or mantras that got me here: "It's only money. It's about doing something meaningful; you get your J.D., and you'll be in a much better position to do more of what needs to be done in this world. The point of a J.D. is the sudden power it brings you." Or something like that. Other times the internal monologue is more pragmatic: "You can't leave now; how would you ever pay off all that debt?"
All that debt, indeed. In a brilliant little post entitled "law school decision time myths," Transmogriflaw lists "it's only money" as numero uno, and she couldn't be more right. The trouble is, if you don't allow yourself to believe this myth, how could you ever start law school?
Here's how: Go to the cheapest school you can get into! That was my plan when I started this adventure. I talked myself into it after seeing a friend earn a full ride to a quality school on the basis of a high LSAT score and a great application essay. I figured, hey, I can do that. Looking back, it seems that was the beginning of a slippery slope I'm still descending. If I can go free, why not? I thought. And if I can't go free, at least I can earn some good scholarships and grants to bring the cost down into the reasonable realm. And if I can't go for free, and if I can't earn enough scholarships and grants, I can always just go to an inexpensive school. And if I can't go for free, and if I can't earn enough scholarships and grants, and if I can't go to an inexpensive school, I can just not go at all. That will be a clear indicator that I shouldn't be going to law school. See: "But I've already decided that I won't go if I have to pay more than $30k for it, so that's a little easier."
Yeah. That's what I thought. Somehow all that thinking morphed along the way into something completely different. Transmogriflaw's Myth Three began to operate, working overtime to make me ignore my nagging doubts. "The debt won't matter so much because I'll be able to get a job that pays well enough I won't notice those big loan payments. And if I don't get a job that pays very well, I'll use my school's LRAP to take care of those big bills. And if my school's LRAP won't take care of those bills..." I never really found an answer to that one, but here I am, anyway.
And somewhere along the way, Myth Four kicked in. Yes, I had to apply to the top schools I could reasonably hope to get into, and yes, I had to go to the best one that admitted me. Looking back, I'm sure Myths Three and Four worked together. When I started thinking about law school, I didn't think this way at all, but it became a sort of inevitable, self-generating process. The more I learned about law school and getting in and all that, the more I had to seriously confront the likelihood that I would have to incur incredible debt to go. And the only way to get my mind around all that debt was to try to believe that whatever job I got would cover it. And in order to get that "job that pays enough," I had to go to the best school I could get into. I had to. There was no other option. After all, isn't that the law school applicant's Prime Directive?
So now, here I am, in law school, in debt, less than thrilled about the whole thing. Not miserable, not thrilled. Just trying to understand where I've been so I can figure out where I'm going. In a comment on the always excellent and inimitableStay of Execution, "tex" writes:
So true. So true.
Where do you think you want to be? Are you doing the things it takes to end up there? Maybe a better question is: Can we ever really know the answers to these questions?
In addition to drawing thoughtful comments like those from "tex,"Scheherazade, an attorney practicing at a small firm in Maine, also recently posted some thoughts about how dispiriting the practice of law can sometimes be. She writes:
Perhaps feelings like these can be reduced by the type of law a person chooses to practice, but the more I learn about it, the more I doubt that's true. It's begun to appear almost inevitable that, no matter what direction I choose to take in law, I'll end up having to represent clients I don't want to represent, who want me to accomplish things I believe are wrong. It may be impossible to know where you want to go in life, but it's generally a bit easier to know where you don't want to go, isn't it?
Posted 07:24 AM | Comments (6) | law school
Saturday Night at Bethesda B & N Cafe
Two women are playing endless and intense rounds of competitive Scrabble. Their board appears to be a custom job, with the top cut from a "deluxe" board and mounted on a wooden turntable (looks a lot like one of these). Perhaps the board belongs to the coffee shop. But what about the Adjudicator 3500? That's right: The Adjudicator 3500. It appears to be a timing device with two lights and two little plungers on the top. When a player hits her plunger and calls out her score, it becomes the other player's turn. Both players write down each others' scores, to keep each other honest, I suppose. Their letters are guarded by the lions and toucans adorning their cloth letter-bag. These two just don't mess around.
At another table, a man reads a thick ream of laser-printed pages (a manuscript of some kind, perhaps?), and a paperback novel, alternately. He also seems to talk on his cell phone a lot, but I've never heard it ring or seen him dial.
Behind me a couple silently signs to each other, pointing at our table and making keyboard tapping motions. Are they signing about how much they covet the coolness that is the iBook? ;-)
Not far away, two men play chess. One of them discusses each move before he makes it. Is that a wise strategy?
At the window, a man on a cell phone calls the movement of traffic below as if he's calling a football game. It seems he's trying to lead someone to an open parking space. We're on the second floor, overlooking a parking lot, so he has a great view of spaces as they open, then all too quickly close again. I imagine this man does this for a living. He's the B&N parking man. For five dollars, you can call him and he'll guide you to a parking spot. He's always here, come any time.
I see a lot of what I would guess are married couples, men and women at that point in life where their kids no longer live at home and their jobs no longer demand long hours. They come to the bookstore on a Saturday night to browse and people-watch, then they drive home in their SUV-variant to watch the evening news on their large but not too large screen tv. Life is good.
One of the scrabble women is slowly making her way through a nice piece of choclate cake. They don't use the rotation feature of their special board; one of them appears to prefer playing upside down.
I know nothing about these people, they know nothing about me. There's a line for coffee, a line to pee, and every table is taken.
Saturday night at the Bethesda B&N Cafe. Who knew?
Posted 06:17 AM | life generally
