7 Lessons from Law School

A little over two years ago, I wrote the following draft as a review of a semester-long law school internship.  At the internship, I drafted decisions for judges in the Superior Court.  Upon finding this review draft, I re-discovered kernels of wisdom that apply to being an attorney (and to life) in more ways than I could have imagined at the time I wrote it.

I present it here, in its original form of six lessons, with Number Seven as a postmortem addendum to law school and life as a lawyer.

Seven Things Your 1L Professors Never Told You (Or Maybe They Did, and You Didn’t Want to Believe Them)

First Day Of Law School

            Even after two years to get used to the idea, it still sounds intimidating:  my first day of law school.  I remember it vividly.  I dressed in an outfit I had coordinated a week earlier, down to the correct shade of earrings.  I had a perfectly organized laptop bag on one shoulder as I walked to class, admiring and taking in the details of my new campus.  From bright green and perfectly manicured lawns, the white, old-Catholic mission-style buildings overlook a panoramic view of the ocean and downtown.  I walked to class savoring this perfect little scene, determined to win at all aspects of my newfound legal career.

            My first day, I had a number of thoughts and concerns about my decision to attend law school.  I was filled with hopes and plans, reveling at how many firsts I was about to experience.  This day was the first of many firsts:  I was the first in the family to graduate high school or college or go to law school; this was my first time back in my hometown in four years; the first private school I’d ever attended; the first time I was on track for a real job and real career; and the first time I would meet my future colleagues and competitors.  Every detail had to be planned, and the plan had to be executed flawlessly.  After all, so many people have stressed the importance of first impressions, especially first impressions in law school.  I viewed this day as a make-it-or-break-it moment, a test of the fates as to whether or not I had made the right decision.

            But for all of the planning, right down to the earrings, my first day of law school was not a flawless execution.  I could not buy my textbooks because my loan had not come through yet; I got lost on campus, resulting in getting the last choice locker location and showing up to each class drenched in sweat; and the first people I met struck me as odd, eccentric, and not at all like I expected law students to be.  My hair fell out of place, the strap on my perfect bag broke, and not a single page of the assigned readings was discussed in any of my first classes.

            Throughout the entire first day, I fought back a wave of overwhelming anxiety; each flaw in my plan constituted a mini panic attack, and when I went home that night I chalked up my first day as an utter failure.  My nerves were fried over broken bag straps and ill-placed lockers.  I fought back an urge to cry on my drive home, later bemoaning to my family how I could not imagine a worse first day.  As I tucked myself in at the exact bedtime I had pre-planned in an hour-by-hour schedule made in Microsoft Excel and printed on my bathroom mirror, I vowed to myself, tomorrow will go as planned.  Tomorrow will go as planned.  I will make it happen.

First Day At A New Job

            It should sound intimidating, but I can’t recall an ounce of fear playing into my first day as a judicial intern.  After all, this was serious business; my first real job outside of law school.  No, this would not be making copies and watching other attorneys work, like my first summer job.  No, this would be my first time behind the scenes at a real court house, writing briefs for real judges, for real criminal cases, and for real attorneys.  Yet, the fresh intern who walked in on that first day had changed so radically from the newly-minted law student who stressed over broken bag straps and lockers.  The first year of law school had taught me one lesson above all others; things will go wrong, and they will probably go wrong often.

            Stress management is just about the only practical lesson taught during the first year of law school.  The law school system is designed to take a group of highly ambitious and successful people from all walks of life accustomed to being on top of the heap and make sure ninety percent of them are not in the fabled top ten percent of their class.  So goes the first practical lesson of law school for most (that is, ninety percent of us; I’m sure those top ten learn it some way or another):  you will make mistakes, despite your best plans and efforts, and those mistakes will cost you something.  That missed issue is the difference between the B+ and the A-.  That one Bluebook rule is the difference between making it on Law Review or not.  Your best effort is not a guarantee at the top of the heap any more.  So what do you do now, with your broken bag straps and your wavering confidence? 

            You learn to manage the stress of your best not always being good enough.

            I walked into this internship with a very different attitude than the one I came to law school with.  As the Lead Attorney managing the program told us at our internship orientation, “You will make mistakes, but you must learn from them.  You grow or you go.”  The idea of accepting that I will make mistakes, of letting go of the idea of perfection, used to scare me more than I care to admit.  Yet, as I discovered throughout the course of this internship, learning to let go of the idea has improved my performance significantly.  At my last job, most attorneys would remember me as an awkward, anxiety-ridden young intern who cowered away from conflicts.  The impression at this internship could not be more different; I was easy-going, relatable, well-liked, and produced a constant stream of work that received glowing praises from my mentor and the judges. 

            I walked into this internship with a wealth of academic knowledge hoping to learn as much as I can about putting that knowledge to work in legal practice.  Below is a guidebook of those practical lessons gleaned throughout the course of this internship.

Practical Lessons

            1.  Keep it Simple, Stupid.

            The acronym is “K.I.S.S.”  Michael Scott, the doofy and blundering boss on the T.V. show The Office, made this acronym one of his rarely correct insights into life and business.  The concept behind it is, of course, simple; strive for the simplest possible way to say something.  Of course!  Why wouldn’t you?  Yet, law students take this lesson for granted; it seems obvious, too obvious, to think about any further than this paragraph.

            The reasoning behind this idea is essential to being an effective advocate, either in person or in writing.  Why?  Why do judges and lawyers savor simplicity in legal argument when they are lucky enough to find it? 

            Think, for a moment, of the worst-written opinion you have ever read.  For me, it was a case out of Contracts, written some time long, long ago, before electricity or paved roads or any appreciation for simplicity.  I raged over the convoluted pages, wondering aloud WHY on Earth would anyone write something so poorly?!?  Why be so wordy, so repetitive?  I stopped and marveled in child-like wonder at a paragraph that was really just a single sentence; a mess of clause after clause, an evil calculus of outdated words at war with one another.  I took a break from figuring out the case and headed to the kitchen for something to drink, pondering why anyone would write opinions like these.  Was it simply to torture future generations of law students, or some spiteful attempt to hold the English language hostage with random Latin phrases for more than a few painful pages?

            The more I pictured the writer and his audience, the more it began to make sense.  This was not a case where some poor court reporter was simply transcribing the judge’s words by hand with some quill and ink; no, this was a real written opinion.  This was some guy in the sixteen hundreds, some real flesh-and-blood guy, sitting in a building without central heating or air conditioning, probably wearing a massive white wig and too many layers of hand-sewn clothing.  This was some guy who had to prove that he was an educated lawyer by making his writing as complicated and hard to figure out as possible.  The writing audience needed to see that he could use Latin; the reader was not running between meetings on a Smartphone.

            DON’T BE THAT WIG-WEARING GUY.  No one is impressed by the writings Mr. Long-Winded, Must-Prove-How-Educated-I-Am.  

            2.  Be a People Person.

            As much as law school emphasizes a skill set that can be honed by late hours spent alone in the library, law school offers no course on another set of skills equally important;  how to interact with people.

            Some attorneys wrote briefs that are not just bad --- they were shockingly bad.  The kind of bad that made me wonder how they ever got through law school, let alone passed the bar, let alone got a job.  How can such bad writers progress this far in the legal profession?

            One particularly bad brief made me see how a bad writer can still be a great advocate.  As much as the defense counsel's brief failed to make any point at all amid the myriad spelling and grammar mistakes, and even with my recommendation to deny his motion, the defense attorney got his motion granted.  He did so by showing up in court armed with good arguments and the litigation skills to present them forcefully to the judge. 

            Through his ability to talk...to people.  And that's not the only example.  Being able t talk to other attorneys, to read into what to say and when, gets you farther in your case.  Everyone has their own biases, their own world opinions; being able to read people and appeal to their nature is an essential skill to advocating.  Those attorneys who could do so, who knew just what the judges needed to hear to make a decision in their favor, who knew just what the District Attorney was after so they could forcefully rebut them, those attorneys won in a court where not many defense lawyers do.

            3.  Writing a Good Brief is Like Playing Piano.

            This semester, I decided to take up playing piano for the first time in my life.  My mentor and I had many conversations in passing about how fun it is to play an instrument; this is how I found out that he is a major Bluegrass fan and a seasoned guitar player.  I had never played an instrument, nor had anyone ever taught me.

            Yet, the experience taught me that something unnervingly complex can be broken down into simple, easily accomplished units.  The most beautiful song is really just one pattern played by the left hand and another by the right; there is order in what looks like a chaos of black and white keys, a pattern which is easy on its own but can create seemingly endless combinations.

            Even the most complex legal issue can be broken down into simple units.  Being able to do this for a reader allows them to see each step in the reasoning, much like it allows a piano player to see each step in a song and play it.  Using sub-headings within an issue helps to make each unit distinct, like a key on a piano.  Each unit has to make sense in that order, much like keys played in the right order.  Bad briefs are like poorly-played melodies; the keys are out of order, or missed altogether; bad briefs are missing logical links in the chain, or the links are out of order and make no sense.

            Above all, brief writing and piano playing both require a good deal of patience and practice.  The more I practiced brief writing, every single day, the more fluid the process became and the better my briefs became.  Taking the kind of methodical, step-by-step approach I took to learning piano helped me write thorough work.  And that thoroughness showed through to the attorneys and judges who read it.

            4.  “Nice” Lawyers Are NOT Pushovers.  But They Aren’t Jerks, Either.

            My horror stories from last summer are the stuff of legal intern legends.  On one particular day in Child Support's court offices, there was only one attorney on staff.  And she detested me for no particular reason.  In fact, she detested everyone.  As soon as anyone was out of earshot, she was immediately ripping them apart with the kind of disdain that Cruella De Ville would envy.  It was a busy day, so she had me take a few parents' cases on by myself.  One parent in particular had a complex case; calculating her child support seemed impossible.  She had multiple state benefits in play, and I honestly had no idea how changing the child support order would affect each of them.  So I decided to ask the Cruella attorney for help; after all, I did not want to give these parents bad advice. 

            Well, Cruella refused to help me whatsoever.  In front of an entire office full of people, she screamed that she had no time to help some clueless law clerk.  I stood there frozen, paralyzed with fear and completely at a loss for what to do.  There was no one to ask, and I could not answer the questions from these parents, who already sat waiting for me in my cubicle.  I turned around without saying a word to Cruella, and went back to my cube with no idea what to do.  I simply told the parents I could not help them with all of their issues and sent them back into the waiting room where they would have to wait the rest of the day for Cruella to get to them. 

            In retrospect, I should have stood my ground with Cruella.  I should have reminded her that her boss told her that she was the supervising attorney that day, and that her boss told every attorney in that office to help the clerks when they needed it.  I should have told her that these parents had already waited half the day.  In short, I should have stood up for myself.  In short, I was so nervous that I was acting like a pushover.

            When I came into this internship, I made a conscious effort to NOT to let anxiety and inexperience get the better of me.  Just because someone is a master doesn't mean they can treat people like their time is worth less.  I would not get strung out to dry again by anyone unhelpful, or let them treat me like I was just another clueless clerk.  At the same time, I was not about to sabotage myself by being overly aggressive; after all, I am only a volunteer and not yet an attorney.  I don't know nearly as much as anyone here.

            I think my air of confidence was apparent to the court.  Instead of disdain, I received respect from the entire staff because I commanded it.  I let go of the nervousness and decided to let the suit fit; I may not have passed the Bar Exam yet, but having the attitude that I am competent and  helpful showed.  Although no one at this office was a Cruella, I spoke up when I thought something was amiss or when I needed help.  I was polite, calm, but effective.  I had struck a balance between the former pushover attitude of inexperience without going to the kind of extremes that a Cruella would.

            5.  “Bad Lawyering” Happens.  A Lot.

            This internship has exposed me to briefs written by attorneys from all kinds of backgrounds.  One habit I developed when looking at a case was to run a search for each attorney through the State Bar's website.  This would tell me if they had any sanctions against them, where they went to law school, how long they have been licensed.  I did this to get a fuller picture of the writer behind the brief, and to help judge the credibility of the brief itself.

            I did this because the truth is that there are plenty of bad lawyers out there, licensed and ready to be negligent or reckless or worse.  Many of the briefs I read through would contain harmless errors, like mis-cited authority or spelling mistakes.  Others would dance the border between harmless mistakes and negligence.  In one case, a defense attorney completely ignored the language in a fax arraignment form that waived a speedy trial before filing a motion for a dismissal for violating speedy trial rights.  Because he failed to read the form before executing the arraignment, he lost what would have otherwise been a valid claim to a dismissal of the charges for his client. 

            The best defense I found to all the bad lawyering going on is a healthy dose of skepticism at the credibility of, well, everything attorneys do.  As a member of the court, I learned to double-check the accuracy of everything attorneys submitted, right down to page citations.  I learned to never take for granted that everyone --- law clerks, experienced attorneys, or even judges --- can be mistaken.

            6.  You Need an Honest Answer:  How are You Feeling Today?

            In a way, we come into law school like children who have been coddled by their parents.  Only here, the parents are really the academic world, coddling us with good grades and teacher praise and merit scholarships.  Law school refuses to caudle; instead, law school is like the parent that teaches to “self-soothe.”  Yes, law school is that parent; the one that leaves the child in the room to cry itself into exhaustion, ignoring its desperate pleas entirely while sipping a glass of Merlot and reading a book.  It leaves us alone when we cry about missed opportunities, grades we think we don't deserve, and the job we should have gotten. 

            Now that the coddling is over, the cold-shouldered lesson law school has to teach us about self-dependence can be appreciated when it comes time to step into the real world.  The wisdom of self-soothing came into play for me at this internship.  I was left alone to sink or swim much of the time, taking responsibility for my own time and my own projects.  One thing law school has taught me well is to self-motivate, to set my own schedule and follow it.  Yet, at the same time, the lack of coddling and all-A's in law school has prepared me for the real legal world in an emotional sense.  I don't expect a parade of praise with every good job I do; I expect the harshness of failure and its consequences, which makes me mindful of preventing as many mistakes as I can and allows me to learn from the ones I do make.

7.  Trust That it Will All Work Out for the Better.

        There will be many opportunities that test your boundaries and limitations.  There will be many times when you question your sanity.  There will be even more times when others question your sanity.  But at the end of the day, you have to be able to look back at your track record for these situations and know, to your very core and center, that it has always ultimately worked out in your favor.  Going through the pain somehow always made both you and your life better.

        The older you get, the more difficult it is to risk trying something new, to risk letting the boundaries and limitations expand.  Never let go of that child-like ability to dive head-first into something that others call "too risky" or "crazy," because their crazy just might be your cup of tea. 

And don't let broken bag straps and lockers get you down when the big picture looks just fine.