Part II - Law School requires you to work from Day 1 till the minute before a Final…
Part II of an exclusive report from our Chief Staff Writer, JP... The skeletons are coming out, the myth is being called...
There is this old tale about law schools, that on the first day of orientation back in the 50’s when every law school was just rich WASP males, the dean of students, probably some crusty dude, would get up, say “Look to the left of you, look to the right of you, by the time you graduate only 1 of you will remain.” Then the rich WASP boys would get into a panic, drink a martini, and blame everything on the Jews. By the time graduation rolled around 2 years later, these were no longer merely college graduates, these were seasoned lawyers, trained in the Socratic method (which is the subject of a whole other section) well versed in Black Letter Law and most importantly, these men were trained to think like a lawyer. They gave up their social lives, never enjoyed a night out, or a night with their wives or girlfriends. They studied from sun up to sun down like a government mule plowing for its master. They lost a lot of colleagues along the way, because after all, law school was hard, and those who could not commit to studying 24/7 were not tough enough to survive.
In the 1970’s, a book came out called OneL. It was about Scott Turow’s first year at Harvard Law School. It describes an incredibly competitive environment where students did exactly what I described in paragraph one; except, they got more ruthless. They went to the bookstore, bought every study aid, every horn book, anything to try and get the edge. In the end, Turow hardly saw his wife, never had fun, and was always studying, only to get mediocre grades. You learned that once again, some of his friends could not cut it and that by the time his first year was done, the hard work made them succumb to the pressure and drop out.
In 2002, I went to my first day of law school. I had bought into the myth, so much so that my first couple of months I practically lived in the library. I would study 4-6 hours a day, on top of classes. My weekends were spent studying all day long. I went out maybe 1 day a week. My relationship with my then girlfriend suffered, because I never had time for her. My friends from the neighborhood, high school and college all put my face on the back of milk cartons because they never saw me. I had succumbed to the trap. Then sometime after I got my first semester grades, I fell into a different trap. A trap I had fallen into all too many times. That was the lazy trap. I stopped doing homework; I skipped classes like a little girl skips a jump rope. I stopped paying attention. When finals rolled around, I turned to my friend EDS and said, what do you think we should do. EDS and I both did the only thing we knew; we decided to just circumvent the system. Rather than spend 100 hours outlining a course, just call up some geek who did it last year and took their outline. The key to law school, much like the key to anything else, is not reinventing the wheel or the bread-slicer, but instead, just using the products of those idiots who were too stupid not to figure out that law school is not hard. Each semester since the first, my GPA has remained the same or gone up, but the amazing thing is, each semester I have done less and less work. You might think, big deal, anyone can get Straight C’s. But the problem is, neither I, nor EDS or any of the other idiots we work with have bad grades, as a matter of fact, we are all near the top. How did we pull this off? Quite simply, we learned early on in our careers that law school is not a marathon; instead, it’s a poker game. All you got to do is bluff to the professor that you actually know the crap. I have gotten A’s in classes, and if you asked me what a suretyship was or how to file for default judgment, I would draw a complete blank and tell you that there are many ways to describe it. Of course, after 5 minutes of BSing you, I would hope you lost interest and walk away, before it becomes quite evident I know nothing.
They say law school is about teaching you to “think like a lawyer.” After 3 years, I still don’t know what that means. One thing I did learn was taking advantage of the law school myth that it takes a lot of work. Whenever there is something going on and I really don’t want to go I just cite all the work I have to do. When I am late for an appointment or to meet someone, I explain how I got caught up in my Trust and Estates homework. When someone needs a favor and I don’t want to flat out say no, I explain how I’d love to, but I got a research assignment to finish. That is the one beauty of all these law school myths; nobody knows how little work it really takes. You can fool family, friends, bosses, women you’ve just met. It’s like getting all the benefits of being a hard-worker, without having to be working hard.
There is only one time you actually have to work hard, and that is right before finals. For 2 weeks, you study your ass off. Except even now, I don’t do that. Last spring I picked up course material for the first time 6 hours before then final, and still did quite well. Last semester, I had a final in 2 days and knew next to nothing, yet somehow, I still beat the curve. In the end, I think the key to law school success in not working hard and bogging down your brain with extra nonsense. It is 2 days before a final, just studying the essentials. The next time someone says they want to go to law school, but afraid it will be too hard, point them to this piece. And if someone tells you how sorry they are they couldn’t make it to your son’s Bris because they had so much Contracts homework, point them to this piece and tell them, “I am on to you and your myth that you are working hard.” The question is: what do law students do with all that time they claim to be working? Well, that’s the subject of another section of the law school myth debunked report.
There is this old tale about law schools, that on the first day of orientation back in the 50’s when every law school was just rich WASP males, the dean of students, probably some crusty dude, would get up, say “Look to the left of you, look to the right of you, by the time you graduate only 1 of you will remain.” Then the rich WASP boys would get into a panic, drink a martini, and blame everything on the Jews. By the time graduation rolled around 2 years later, these were no longer merely college graduates, these were seasoned lawyers, trained in the Socratic method (which is the subject of a whole other section) well versed in Black Letter Law and most importantly, these men were trained to think like a lawyer. They gave up their social lives, never enjoyed a night out, or a night with their wives or girlfriends. They studied from sun up to sun down like a government mule plowing for its master. They lost a lot of colleagues along the way, because after all, law school was hard, and those who could not commit to studying 24/7 were not tough enough to survive.
In the 1970’s, a book came out called OneL. It was about Scott Turow’s first year at Harvard Law School. It describes an incredibly competitive environment where students did exactly what I described in paragraph one; except, they got more ruthless. They went to the bookstore, bought every study aid, every horn book, anything to try and get the edge. In the end, Turow hardly saw his wife, never had fun, and was always studying, only to get mediocre grades. You learned that once again, some of his friends could not cut it and that by the time his first year was done, the hard work made them succumb to the pressure and drop out.
In 2002, I went to my first day of law school. I had bought into the myth, so much so that my first couple of months I practically lived in the library. I would study 4-6 hours a day, on top of classes. My weekends were spent studying all day long. I went out maybe 1 day a week. My relationship with my then girlfriend suffered, because I never had time for her. My friends from the neighborhood, high school and college all put my face on the back of milk cartons because they never saw me. I had succumbed to the trap. Then sometime after I got my first semester grades, I fell into a different trap. A trap I had fallen into all too many times. That was the lazy trap. I stopped doing homework; I skipped classes like a little girl skips a jump rope. I stopped paying attention. When finals rolled around, I turned to my friend EDS and said, what do you think we should do. EDS and I both did the only thing we knew; we decided to just circumvent the system. Rather than spend 100 hours outlining a course, just call up some geek who did it last year and took their outline. The key to law school, much like the key to anything else, is not reinventing the wheel or the bread-slicer, but instead, just using the products of those idiots who were too stupid not to figure out that law school is not hard. Each semester since the first, my GPA has remained the same or gone up, but the amazing thing is, each semester I have done less and less work. You might think, big deal, anyone can get Straight C’s. But the problem is, neither I, nor EDS or any of the other idiots we work with have bad grades, as a matter of fact, we are all near the top. How did we pull this off? Quite simply, we learned early on in our careers that law school is not a marathon; instead, it’s a poker game. All you got to do is bluff to the professor that you actually know the crap. I have gotten A’s in classes, and if you asked me what a suretyship was or how to file for default judgment, I would draw a complete blank and tell you that there are many ways to describe it. Of course, after 5 minutes of BSing you, I would hope you lost interest and walk away, before it becomes quite evident I know nothing.
They say law school is about teaching you to “think like a lawyer.” After 3 years, I still don’t know what that means. One thing I did learn was taking advantage of the law school myth that it takes a lot of work. Whenever there is something going on and I really don’t want to go I just cite all the work I have to do. When I am late for an appointment or to meet someone, I explain how I got caught up in my Trust and Estates homework. When someone needs a favor and I don’t want to flat out say no, I explain how I’d love to, but I got a research assignment to finish. That is the one beauty of all these law school myths; nobody knows how little work it really takes. You can fool family, friends, bosses, women you’ve just met. It’s like getting all the benefits of being a hard-worker, without having to be working hard.
There is only one time you actually have to work hard, and that is right before finals. For 2 weeks, you study your ass off. Except even now, I don’t do that. Last spring I picked up course material for the first time 6 hours before then final, and still did quite well. Last semester, I had a final in 2 days and knew next to nothing, yet somehow, I still beat the curve. In the end, I think the key to law school success in not working hard and bogging down your brain with extra nonsense. It is 2 days before a final, just studying the essentials. The next time someone says they want to go to law school, but afraid it will be too hard, point them to this piece. And if someone tells you how sorry they are they couldn’t make it to your son’s Bris because they had so much Contracts homework, point them to this piece and tell them, “I am on to you and your myth that you are working hard.” The question is: what do law students do with all that time they claim to be working? Well, that’s the subject of another section of the law school myth debunked report.
posted by EDS | 10:27 AM
3 Comments:
Another brilliant piece of investigative journalism...
I am getting emails around the clock asking when the next parts will come out. People are eager to hear what it's all about...
Keep up the good work.
E.
Excellent article. However, I have a slightly different explanation for what caused you guys to start slcking off in law school- it is called the Yankees. Every night that I was at a Yankee game, I felt like the professor from St John's should have been invited. The smarter part of the class were always at games. They had figured out how to do well and still enjoy themselves. At the end of the day, their grades were probably better because they had less stress from school.
I am waiting for the rest of the myths about law school to come out soon. Very entertaining.
AJS
I think St. Johns may loose its "accredited" status after this post.
Rob
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