Tag Archives: Law School

Finishing law school, and the showing from hell

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I might have been on four hours of sleep and chugging coffee, but I finished my coursework for the semester.

Law school is DONE. Hallelu!

I leave the tax law clinic and walk the dogs. The dogs and I into Meth Molly on the walk. She is high again and has trouble with her apartment building door. She grunts and kicks the door before seeing me.

Meth Molly: “You didn’t see that.”
Me: “Of course not.”
Meth Molly : “I tripped. Stubbed my toe.”
Me: “I’m sure.”
Meth Molly: “Can I pet your dogs?”
Me: “Uh sure.”
Meth Molly : “They don’t bite do they? Cus if they do then I’m gonna sue you!”
Me: “Heh. Then no. Bad idea. Bye.”
Meth Molly: “WHAT? Then why the FUCK do you have them around people? If they gon’ bite?!”
Me (walking off): “I didn’t say that they bite. But let’s not take any chances.”
Meth Molly : “Fuck you! You have some nerve you know that?”

I keep walking down the street and she follows.

Meth Molly: “LOOK AT ME! I’m sorry. Fuck.”
Me: “That’s okay. We’ll be on our way, mam.”

Meth Molly keeps cursing at me. I then receive a phone call from prospective tenants who want to see an open apartment.  I meet them at the building and realize that I don’t have my keys.

We walk around to the back of the building and I see that someone tried to break into the building lockbox last night. It was is so badly damaged that it will not open.

I am horrified. I am standing in front of the building, holding two peeing dogs in front of two prospective tenants that think I’m a moron.

I eventually get a neighbor to let me into the building and we walk upstairs to the apartment.

The apartment is vacant but contractors are still doing repairs. The contractors that work for my landlord are notoriously messy, so I had the pleasure of trying to explain why there is a smashed light bulb in the middle of the apartment’s dining room.

I am embarrassed, but slightly too exhausted to care.

My keys were in the laundry room door. Sigh. I need to go to bed.

My first post-law school night consisted of laundry, taco bell, and Celebrity Apprentice. This is the life.

Beware of law school, bats

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It is law school application reason again…somehow.

The eager 0Ls are back and I have that same conversation over, and over again.

 

This is an unpleasant time of the school year. There is a lot of crabbiness, busyness and barely-checked desperation from those who do not have summer or post-graduation jobs lined up.

Being a law student is like being a tourist in a country with a collapsing regime – you want to get your ticket and bail before Anderson Cooper arrives for the stoning.

I obviously get to avoid most of the crazy because I spend my days at my cubicle in the burbs. I pop into school in the late evenings and for tax clinic client interviews, but I am not privy to the drama anymore.

Like the tourist, I watch the mess on my computer screen and hear the stories via text and tweets. And I can’t deal with the delusional 0Ls who want to go to the place I just escaped.

So I am over it. Now I just direct the 0Ls to the Philalawyer open letter to future law students and that classic youtube video and then tell them to get back to me if they have any questions.

They never do.

And it’s not because the 0Ls take my advice. They don’t. It’s because like most people who are about to do something incredibly stupid, they need to distance themselves from the naysayers. They write me off as cynical and cranky old man, and they come back a year later and tell me that I was right.

I guess that’s just the status of things.

And let’s be clear – law school is a good idea for some people and I do not regret going to law school. I learned a lot and grew up in the past three years.

But law school is not a straight ticket to a high paying career for the vast majority of students. A legal degree does not mean job security, happiness, respect, or guarantee that you will do better than $12 an hour as a contractor in a basement room at an undisclosed location with bats.

You heard me. Bats.
Everywhere.

And as with all rants, you have to end it the moment you start warning people of bats. So beware, and goodbye.

The end of guilt

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My week is full of at least 60-hours of law and tax related work. I work full-time at the office, clerk at the public defender’s office, volunteer at a tax non-profit, and regularly skip over to the law school for the tax law clinic.

I do 60-hours of work in three different counties, but life is so much easier and less stressful than having the regular law school schedule. 1

The difference between work and law school is the existence of boundaries. Ten hour days at the office, rambling bail dockets, and clinic meetings aren’t a big deal because I have a clearly defined role that ends when I leave each place. 2

The worst part of law school is that nagging feeling that there is something undone. You can always prepare more, study more, read a hornbook, etc. but at some point you have to quit studying. The extra information probably won’t help and you’ll never compete with the library-dwelling gremlins anyway.

Putting the books down is a good idea, and healthy, but it still feels like quitting. The feeling of “I could be doing this that and the other” soils every outing, meal, and non-school related activity. It’s a horrible guilt that causes indigestion and mass crabbitude.

But that guilt is gone. I am not allowed to work at the office more than 10-hours per day or 40-hours a week for fear of a FLSA violation and the public defenders dismiss most of the clerks after the end of the docket. My obligation ends when I leave the building. There’s no reading, homework, or looming final.

And even at the tax law clinic, there is only so much work I can do before I have to wait on a client or the IRS. There’s a clear end to my role. And I love it.

Good god, it does get better after law school doesn’t it? This is going to be the best semester ever.

1 This semester I have 6 credits: the tax law clinic and a foreign-language movie class that meets 1 day a week. No law school classes or finals. BUMP!
2 And unlike after-hours work for a job, these extra-hours are unpaid and will probably not further your career.