One L: Check

So that's done with.

I came into my first year of law school with high hopes and plans: dreams of challenges and successes, of finally finding the right path for myself, and a renewal of commitment to my adult self and career. The first year of law school was definitely all that. As the Fall semester wore on, as out first set of exams came and went, and as grades rolled in, I found that I was truly, truly happy to be in law school. My grades, with nothing below an A-, served to me as a justification that my skills and intellect were uniquely suited to law and law school, and that I was above the common experience of the first-year ordeal. I ascribed all of the tripe that I had heard about how everyone hates law school as nothing but kvetching by people who had already gone through it and wanted to maintain the image of the superiority of lawyers, or complaining by people who through no fault but their own had chosen the wrong path.

Then came Spring.

Click here to read more about my descent into the depths of first-year madness.The work became unbearable. My focus drifted to job searches, extracurriculars, legal matters beyond the scope of my 1L classes, and to staring off blankly into the distance. My job search got me behind a bit, and I never really caught up. I got the flu for a few weeks. Arteries that I didn't know I had in my brain started throbbing regularly as I tried to read. I even went to the emergency room because I was having some sort of advanced anxiety attack that made me think I was having a stroke. I either couldn't sleep, or I couldn't not sleep. I never found time for the gym. I was distant from my partner. I was depressed. I finally started to see why people hated this year, even if they were successful.

I made it through Spring exams... I thought/think I did pretty well, though much remains to be seen. The anxiety of holding onto one of the top spots ate at me all semester, and continues to plague me; a transfer across the bay to the school I moved to California for, or 60K in scholarship money if I remain here is one the line if I don't stay in the top few spots.

After exams, there was the final cruelty of the law review writing competition: I had to write a note over 5 days on the blah-est topic possible: the intersection of employment discrimination law and congressional immunity under the speech and debate clause. Should a congressperson ever fire me or one of my clients for discriminatory reasons, I will probably be grateful for learning the basics. But otherwise.... what a load of esoteric, boring crap.

I turned it in on Tuesday at 5PM. For a whole hour, I was worry free. No more school work! Exams are done! It was the greatest feeling of relief I had had in a long, long time.

Then, at 6PM, the word spread: the first of our grades had been posted. I went to check them.

LRW: A-. Good, but I wanted an A.

Civil Procedure: C-

Ouch.

If you are a civilian, you probably don't understand how much this hurt. I had worked my ass off all year in an environment that pushes you to measure your self-worth on the basis of these letters with little signals after them. I was physically exhausted and apparently starting to become neurologically damaged from the stress. I had barely visited friends, nor read a non-law book, nor really done much of anything but law crap for a year. The only thing that kept me going was the 3.84, the possibility of transfer, the possibility of scholarships, the possibility of firms licking my toes in order to persuade me to sign my life away to them, the possibility of someday becoming the Chief Justice of the Supreme Fucking Court (not really, but one can dream when one has a 3.84). Civ Pro had just kicked me in the nuts and taken it all away.

Not really, of course, but when you live in the pressure cooker of the first year, that's what a C- can come to represent in your silly screwed up one L mind: a death sentence. In reality I went from a 3.84 to a 3.60 (including the other A- that was also posted, but which I wasn't happy with because it wasn't an A. Ha!), and i probably am just on the cusp of the top 10 students. And everyone gets some C's at some point... some very smart people get a lot of C's. But none of that satisfies me now: I want my 3.84 back. What a screwed up little plan this whole law school thing is, and what sad, sad little people it can turn us into. In the end, law school won: I can't be happy unless it bestows its honors upon me, and yet its honors are empty and joyless.

You win, law school. I know there will be other times when I will have perspective and will appreciate how you made me stronger, how you did fulfill those hopes I had when I entered. But for now, I am like the rest of the people who made it through the first third of your toll: I, too, have felt the pain you can incur. Law school sucks.

That's all I have to say about that. I leave for Vietnam tonight. Law stuff will be confined to De Novo for the summer. Traditional Notions will be a travel blog for that time. I just got a new digital camera, so tune back in for tales and photos of the culinary delights of SE Asia.