What I Learned In Law School

I have been baptized in the law. Three years of rigorous instruction plied and shaped my thought process. My brain is full of Constitutional law, Family law, Torts, Property, Administrative law, Local Government law, Tax, Sports law, Statutory Interpretation, Evidence, Death Penalty, International Human Rights law, Land Use Planning, Criminal law, Civil Procedure, Contracts, and Regulated Industries.

Like most educational opportunities in life, the most meaningful lessons did not involve the classroom. The ‘law experience’ itself was much more illuminating and valuable than any classroom instruction could be. And more than any other, law school taught me it is more important to know what you don’t know than to know what you do know.

Know thy self.

Law school taught me how to deal with printers and their universal tendency to malfunction at inopportune times. Sometimes, even though it would be better to seek help, deadlines were approaching and I had no choice but to do things myself. Hell, after three years of last minute printing projects, it wouldn’t take much before I could be a printer repair man myself. Removing paper jams, changing toner cartridges, and knowing the exact place to effectively deliver a reset-smack... all in a days work.

Trust thy self.

Legal training has made me a damn fine (if I do say so myself) hoop-jumper-through-guy. No meaningless task can stop me now. You want me to take an original, signed birth certificate plus a copy of “said” document to building A so they can certify it before I run it over to building B across town? No problem, that’s right in my wheel-house. I’ve learned to overcome my incessant need to question the powers that be and/or their inane rules. Law school: How I learned to stop challenging authority, or how I learned to love the process. Sometimes it is just self-important bullshit, and you have to do it anyway.

Laugh at thy self.

I’ve had an amazing opportunity to mingle with truly brilliant individuals. Both fellow students and professors continuously surprised and amazed me. I am lucky to have met so many interesting and wonderful people. Someday I will be able to tell stories about the time I watched the State Supreme Court Justice strike out in slow-pitch softball, how I played bar trivia with a Senator, watched the President’s chief-of-staff riff righteously on his guitar, or the time I "posterized" the CEO of General Mills. I cannot help feeling like I crashed the cool-kids party.

Thank you all my friends, fellow law student or not, my family, my roommates, teammates, and especially Ambular, for without your collective presence, encouragement, and assistance I would not have been able to persevere to the end.

Embrace and celebrate the talent and generousity of those around thy self.

The lessons I learned over the course of the last three years were not necessarily new or earth-shaking. Instead, law school made them more intense and poignant. Perhaps baptism was the wrong analogy; law school was more of a confirmation in the law. Baptism is a passive event; one receives benefits without active participation. Confirmation demands effort, engaged learning, and public displays of your knowledge.

The road has been long, the time has been short, and I will never forget the joys, the stress, the failures, the triumphs, and the people.