Off The Old Block

I’ve survived my first week of law school.

Observations.
1. There is a significant difference between the preparedness and enthusiasm of those students coming directly out of undergrad, and those students (like myself) returning to full time academics from a full time work environment. While these older students tend to be more reserved, they are also better prepared and handling the stresses much better than the students coming to law school straight from undergrad.

2. The “competition” is already beginning. Tonight at happy hour, the first candidate for “class president” stepped up and put his cards on the table. Primarily with the bold assertation that “I want to be class president” but, additionally, with some remarkably candid discussion about the reality we are all aware of but failing to articulate presently: that his only real goal is to “beat” the other 259 of us. That is a broad statement. If we are to judge our value by our class rank, his only motivaiton is to rank higher than the rest of the students. That means everything he does - every move he makes - has to be calculated with respect to the value it adds (or detracts) from his class ranking.

3. I’m keeping my mouth shut a lot more than normal. I haven’t volunteered to speak in class yet. I haven’t been called on. I’m generally a “gunner” - someone always willing (more; desiring) to contribute. I’m also a very outgoing, socially adept individual. Lately I’ve been more shy, quiet, and reserved. Despite my general preparedness for the rigors of school, and my familiarity with my surroundings - I’m being careful to avoid seeming like I’ve got it all together. I know there are a number of people like our class president - performing the same competition calculus in their heads - and I want them to discount me. I want them to miss me and ignore me. This serves two purposes. If they don’t see me as competition, it is more like we will get along (there won’t be any “dirty tricks”). Second, it will make me more socially acceptable if people aren’t always feeling like I’m smarter than they are.

To answer the quesiton in the title of this post, to my fellow law students. At 2:49a.m. on Saturday morning, your competition is sitting in bed blogging. For the last 2.5 hours, he’s been working on assigned reading due *tuesday*. By the end of the weekend, he’ll have all of the work complete THROUGH tuesday, and he’ll have at least 1/3 of his work done for Wednesday. Will he understand the material any better than you? It depends on how critically he reads the cases. Regardless, he will not have the same anxiety about being behind that you might have. In addition, he’ll keep showing up at all the 1L events he can, to make it seem like he’s everywhere. If he’s everywhere, he can’t possibly be as prepared as you are, right? So he’s not likely to rank highly in class, right?

A final commentary: In CivPro today, when the first girl got cold-called, and we all laughed nervously, remember that response. In a few weeks it probably won’t be so funny. (for the record, I was called on - inadvertantly - as the professor meant to call on the gentleman opposite to my right.

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