Law of the Jungle, Part 2

So, there I was, wondering what was the reason for what seemed to be purposeful roadblocks from my editor. Without admitting anything, she promised that she would take another, more careful look at her notes and get back to me. When she did, she conceded that with a bit more polishing, it would be ready for publication.

Before she did that, the elections for the editorial positions were being held. Well now. Wasn’t that just an entrancing evening to sit through? I mean, it was complete with campaign speeches including one from a Hasidic student whose main argument was that because he had dealt with Mosaic law from childhood, he was most qualified to be editor-in-chief. Yeah, okay, dude, whatever. I’ve dealt with Mosaic law since my childhood, too. As one of the (I’ll be kind and say) more mature students (in fact, I think I was the oldest person on Law Review at the time), my support was solicited. My support was not forthcoming for anyone because, quite frankly, it meant nothing to me and besides I hate politics at any level. They were all day students who were engaging in yet one more Darwinian exercise of who can come out on top. I neither remember nor care who was elected. What did matter was what came next.

My editor and I finished up the work on my case note and it was ready for submission. She was very pleased because it was the fastest an evening division student’s case note had ever been finished. It was so fast, in fact, that it was done before the notes from several of the new editors were ready. So guess what. Mine got shelved. Why? Here’s what I was told. “How would it look if an evening student’s case note was published before the case notes being written by some of the new editorial board were published?” My response was that I couldn’t care less (I believe there was actually some obscene language in my response but I may be mistaken). Mine was ready and this was supposed to be a meritocracy. I believe it was George Orwell in 1984 who said, “All the pigs are equal but some are more equal than others.” So I got elbowed aside from the Fall issue and not published until the Winter issue. For those of you who care, here’s the official citation: Expanding Third Party Liability for Failure to Control the Intoxicated Employee Who Drives: Otis Engineering Corp. v. Clark, 668 S.W.2d 307 (Tex.1983), 18 Connecticut Law Review 155 (1985). Yes. Quite the little mouthful, and that was the title after my editor and I shortened it. (There was also quite a bit of irony they day she walked into a DMV hearing representing the alleged drunk driver and I was the hearing officer. I recognized her but she did not recognize me until after we were done and I introduced myself.)

So there I was, finishing up second year with just the summer session course to take. It was a course in Secured Transaction and taught by the one professor all the day students tried to avoid. He was an old school grader. He did not give you a grade, you earned it. There was too much of a chance for something like a B or, heaven forefend, C+ which would just kill a Grade Point Average that was aimed at Wall Street. I realized that the first night of that class was the same Friday night of the day that I had scheduled a wee bit of surgery on my nether regions which would guarantee that my daughter remained an only child. The teacher’s reaction was that it would be serious for me to miss even one night of class but if I thought the surgery was more important….I did miss the class. And I did earn an A, the grade of which I was proudest in Law School. Parenthetically, the class was made up solely of evening division students and several exchange students from a Canadian law school.

So, having completed my case note, I just sat back and watched Darwin at work on Law Review. My few fellow evening division cohorts on the review and I got a kick out of watching them constantly at each other in a struggle of survival of the fittest (or maybe the least unfit). Better entertainment than any reality show. In FACT, what an idea! Law Review: The Reality Show. You heard it here, first.

Third year was boring, enlivened mainly by Criminal Procedure. The professor threw out a couple ideas for projects which would be done in lieu of the exam. I am always for that sort of thing, so my best friend and I volunteered to do an in-depth examination of how the criminal justice system is portrayed on American TV. Watch TV for a grade? Sign me up! We spent a few weeks taping police, lawyer and detective shows and watching them. We each made notes of particular bits and then arranged them to start with the arrest and carry it right through the court process. We edited it together, wrote a script and presented it one night in class. It was eerie how well it went. Our professor was almost struck speechless. Apparently we had gone above and beyond. That earned us both an A+ without having to worry about the exam, plus that year’s award for excellence in Criminal Procedure. That was fine. The important thing was we had fun and avoided an exam.

As we got into fourth year (ugh!) we were now in that sweet spot for interviewing with prospective employers. I had been working with a friend who was in private practice and I intended to go in with him once I was done so interviewing was a waste of my time. Here’s a piece of advice: Don’t believe everything a lawyer tells you. This guy was going on about what great ideas he had and how we were going to be pioneering new areas. As they were areas that interested me, I was excited. Then, one day, his secretary, who really liked me, literally took me by the arm and dragged me into the ladies room. She told me to get the hell out as this guy was into some bad financial and legal problems and that I did not want any part of them. I left, completely mystified. I took a day off from work and went skiing by myself. Somewhere in that day I realized I had to go in a different direction. Unfortunately, the “recruitment season” was long over.

So fourth year drifted on. It was not just boring it was the death of a thousand cuts made worse by the knowledge that those day students you had started with were now actually practicing law (well, a few were studying to take the bar exam again, nyuk, nyuk). Through a friend, I was able to get a new position as a Law Clerk with a small firm that would take me on as an associate after I was admitted to the bar. (That’s yet another sad tale of broken and false promises but not really pertinent here.) And then, one day, we were sitting under a tent, caps and gowns adorning us. I, as a fair number of my fellow evening students, had fancier robes, as a bunch of us already had several degrees, including one guy who was an MD. Each division had elected a graduation speaker. Their topics all put it in perspective. The day student’s speech began with high-sounding ambitions and goals but ultimately boiled down to this: If you want us to be able to do noble and pro-bono work, you need to make law school cheaper. We have these huge student loan debts so we have to work for big salaries and can’t afford to be noble. And thank you for playing along! Next contestant! Our evening division speaker was married and the mother of several small children. What she talked about was how nice it was going to be to finally, after four years, be able to sit down to dinner with her husband and children and not have to be constantly on the treadmill of classes and work that meant that they hardly saw her. (In August, after the bar exam was over, we were walking in a store and jokingly I asked my daughter why she didn’t hate me anymore. As serious as can be she looked at me and said, “Because you’re home now.”) After the graduation ceremony, one of my friends said to my wife, “What’s next for him, medical school?” Serious as a crutch my wife said, “Over my dead body.” All righty-then!

So next came the bar exam. I am convinced that law school prepares you, not to practice law, but to have the necessary background to study for the bar exam. The bar exam prep course teaches you how to take the exam. Assuming you pass, you then go to work for someone who, hopefully, teaches you how to practice law. Suffice it to say, I passed. Good thing, too. That was an experience I never want to go through again. I thought that Air Force survival training, learning what it was like to be a prisoner of war would be the most stressful experience I’d ever have. It was nothing compared to the bar exam.

My career as a lawyer was not typical and is fraught with missteps and blind alleys but at the moment I’m in a fulfilling position doing something I believe in. But at a particularly dark moment in my past when I was struggling to find a new law position (which never really materialized) and I needed a paycheck, I went to work for a retail store for the Christmas season. I recall it very clearly. One day I was working in the Men’s Department in the island where ties and accessories were arrayed. A very attractive young woman was paying by check and I asked her for a photo ID. She showed me her UConn Law School student card. I politely asked if she was a student. In fact she was. As I completed her transaction and handed her the bag, thanking her by name, of course, I told her that she should consider getting into something else. She asked why she would ever want to do that and I gently explained, “So you’re not selling ties at Christmas to earn a paycheck. Happy Holidays.” And off I went to the next customer.