What is this "wall"?
Well, I could describe it in metaphor...
The Wall is an unyielding giant, holding up a sword... no, wait, something cooler... A dragon, holding up a light saber and screaming phrases only law students would find life-threatening...
"You'll never understand the statute of frauds!!"
"That firm didn't want you because you had spinach in your teeth during your lunch interview!"
"If you hadn't stepped out to pee that one time, you'd still know what was going on in Civil Procedure!!"
Yeah, dragons and light sabers are as far from cool as you can get.... I know. But I'm a dork. Cut me some slack.
Or, I could describe it in simile...
The Wall is like a motivational speaker standing in front of a curtain... and you just feel the passion, and you have hopes, and are ready to work for dreams, and just when you start to think "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggonit, I have the right tolerance for pretentious people and alcohol!"... just then, when you access your inner Sarah-ness, the speaker pulls back the curtain to reveal everyone you've ever seen in your "Oh Crap, I'm Pant-less in Public" dreams laughing hysterically, and worse, in slow motion.
Or, I could just describe it by just saying what it is... for me, at least.
My Wall
As a 1L, I hit the wall a few weeks into law school. I was working, and studying, and maintaining relationships with loved ones back home as best I could, and barely staying on top of things.
Sadly, I didn't realize the "barely" part.
See, law school involves a lot of different expectations.
... Some profs demand you read 50 pages every night just for their class, and know them all by heart the next day, all for that 0.5% that you're called on.
... Some spend weeks covering boring history, and lecturing, showing power points, calling on no one, and making you feel all secure and happy-- only to storm into class one day with a glimmer in their eye and a smirk in their smile and say, "Ms. Bridges? You remember the facts of the case you read for the first day, I'm sure?" ...Oh, yeahhh, that case I read a month ago...? about 27 nights of sleep back...? about two or three nervous breakdowns ago? (Side note: sadly, most profs only call me "Ms." once. After they see who they're calling on, it's "Mrs." from then on... How depressing. But I digress...)
... On some rare occasion, you have a professor who actually gives you a clue as to what you'll be expected to cover, and when! Your heart soars, you feel elated, you think, Great! I can know EVERYTHING about this case, now that I have head notice!... and then, you look at your pages, and you've been assigned a case in British courts, circa 1652, when they still spelled "colour" with a "u"; or was brought by the Securities Exchange Commission on the basis of a violation of Section #Something of Some-Act-No-One-Knows-About; or had to do with (gasp!) the statute of frauds.
And then.... when all that happens, at once, on the same day... and your best bud gets upset with you for not answering a call while you were in a mandatory, 20-reasons-you-aren't-good-enough-to-sit-for-the-bar lecture... and you guzzle a glass of milk at home, just to find it's two weeks old because you no longer have time for the grocery store... and you realize you've had the wrong book for one of your classes all along, and WORSE, you thought you understood that class just fine... it hits. THE WALL.
My first year, I thought I had a handle on things the first few weeks. I definitely studied way more than I did in undergrad-- since I never studied in undergrad. I went to classes way more than I did in undergrad-- since I only occasionally went to class in undergrad. And, after leaving my amazing family, selling my home, and quitting a job better than anyone should hope for, I definitely cared way more than in undergrad (no joke here). And then, a few weeks in...
... Crap, I have 250 pages to read tonight??
... I have three hours of ICW's to do tonight?? (I cannot even remember what that stands for; they were supposed to teach us how to do legal citations on a try-and-fail-and-try-and-fail-and try basis... Whatever their real name, they should be renamed "HTDAOCDPNF"-- "How to Drive Already-OCD People Nuts Faster.") (fn1)
...And I'm supposed to be up at 4:45 am to teach spin??
Well, all would've been fine, until...
MY POWER WENT OUT.
In a new town.
Where I didn't know people.
When I was about to be an AOCD person driven NF.
Where it was 105 degrees outside.
And the only damn flashlight I could find, per usual, was my cell phone. This was My Wall.
Luckily, my trusty flashlight was charged, so, before using it, I called my sis-- who understood me. I cried, freaked out, cried, freaked out, and got snot on my flashlight.
Then, I used my snotty flashlight to gather up my books in my darkened house, and proceeded to the nearest chain restaurant I knew, since I'd had no exploration time to find good wi-fi places.
And wouldn't you know, it was On the Border!
And wouldn't you know, I'd already had dinner!
And wouldn't you know, I'd grabbed the wrong book, and had nothing to do there but to drink a marg and wait for power at my house...
...darn the luck!
Ok, anyway.
Moving On
I thought that was it. The Wall sucked, and I was lucky to hit it early, luckier to have a sis who'd been in professional school, and I even saw many friends hit the same Wall. In fact, some of my girl pals hit The Wall a tad later than me, and I felt like it was meant to be that I could identify with them and encourage them the way my sister had me (HA! as though I was sooooo much wiser... I should've just given out J's business cards!).
Even then, little did I know....
I hadn't really hit The Wall. I'd jumped The Hurdle.
I thought that was a wall?
Now, I'm standing at THE Wall. No.... actually, I've hit it, and since I'm hard headed, and stubborn, and a little too determined, my head is still slammed against it, pushing as hard as it can, with all it's giant-headed might (insert Calvin and Hobbes image...?). And THIS, my friends, is a Wall.
This wall's bricks?
The first inch... All. The. Dang. Reading.
Whoever said the workload gets lighter the second year either (1) lied or (2) spent the second year in a comfy job after having quit law school! And whoever said, well, it doesn't get easier, but you're so adapted to it, it seems like a breeze!!... well, bite me. A 140 mph wind isn't a "breeze," it's Katrina... Go get a job with that You're good enough, you're smart enough guy.
My assignments are huge, and I have a whole new challenge: people who are taking classes only because they are crazy about the subject matter... can you say Gunner-ville? (look two more inches deep.)
The second inch... Law Review.
Oh, yeahhhhh... Law review is great on your resume, Law review can help you be published, All the best firms want law review students.... Ahhhhhh! What about the truth: law review is HARD. And it takes a lot of TIME that you don't have. And you have to teach yourSELF how to do it. And, oh, don't forget... It's INTERNATIONAL law review... Um, I barely know U.S. law, thanks, much less the laws of foreign nations!! My research topics are supposed to be about groundbreaking cases and changing laws of other countries-- how do you know groundbreaking changes when you don't know what the heck the law was to begin with?? ... and I can hear the over-positive people now: Come on, Sarah, it's a bit of work, but it will all be worth it!! Just find a foreign law you're interested in and see what's going on! ...Oh, yeah?? Easy to say-- ever tried to learn the old laws on hydraulic fracturing of gas wells in France when all their laws are written in (shocker alert!) FRENCH?? Hahaha how about I throw a middle eastern county in there?
The third inch... The Gunners.
Will they never go away?? It's like some awful horror movie monster... they always walk slower than you.... and talk slower than you.... even their arm, trying to grab you, is reaching out at the speed of the US postal service... but somehow, they NEVER GO AWAY!! You can't run, you can't hide-- they're there!! They will never leave. They will never be absent. And they will never, ever stop asking totally asinine questions. (fn2)
The fourth inch... The Interviews.
Oh God, the interviews.
And the callbacks.
And the disappointments.
The phone calls saying you got a callback-- or the letter, saying you didn't-- or, worse, the checking, and checking, and checking for that letter saying you didn't-- only to hear they already hired someone, months ago, and just didn't bother telling you.
The sprint to the mailbox, to see what's in, then the full-minute mental debate, trying to figure out if whatever's in there is better left unread.
The tiny "ding!" every iPhone user knows, alerting you to a new email, the hope it's that sweet recruiting girl you met a few days ago, then reading that it's just a (67th) reminder to get your flu shot.
Or, the worst. A call, missed during class, from an unknown number... BUT it's from an area code matching the firm you just interviewed with, and had your heart set on.... AND the first 3 digits seem so memorable, they could only be that firm... PLUS you know no one gives rejection phone calls.... Which leads to an awkward shuffle to the bathroom to check that golden voicemail, even tho your professor doesn't like bathroom breaks... A frantic self-dial... Only to hear nothing on the other end!!... So, then... A quick trip back in the classroom... then to whitepages.com, and, a few seconds later... A realization that the call was your internet provider, offering some new damn service you don't even care about because you're now heartbroken.
The fifth inch... well, I have a fifth. Sixth. Seventh. More. But sadly, the fifth is sleep, which somehow becomes the 2L's worst enemy after hitting The Wall, Phase 1.
And, as I have an entire 3-day cite check to do in 24 hours; and still need to catch up on reading after missing four classes from just one harrowing callback; and have to teach an inner-city, 60% ESL elementary class of 32 fifth graders about the law in a few days for part of my pro bono hours; and need to figure out why on earth you would have to pay income tax on damages from being sexually harassed but not from being bonked in the head; and finish that scholarship app, since law school don't pay those bills; and prep for my next interview, since that call wasn't from who I thought it was; and start working on those outlines, since finals are just around the corner..........
SMACK!!!!
Ouch. Yeah. Hi, Wall. Good to see ya. I'm sure you remember me. Only last time, I bumped into you by mistake. This time, I know you're here. I'm not coming at you with a snot-covered cell phone flashlight... I have a dozen interviews, three suits, and a respectable set of grades under my belt....
...what's that? That doesn't scare you? Well, Wall, consider yourself Jericho, because I also have an understanding family and great set of friends behind me, a perfected knowledge of business cocktail spots, an accepted law review casenote topic, AND a prof who doesn't like gunners!! (see fn 2) How about THAT?
All in all, I'd say the wall's a'crumblin' down...
...Hopefully there's no more dumb enough to stand in the way third year!
(fn1) ICW = Interactive Workbook Citations. Loosely translated, a mandatory book 1L's must spend $36 on, only to realize at the end of the year they never used because all the exercises were conducted online. EX: "Hey, Sarah, what's this book under your coffee table?" "Oh, that? That's just my unused ICW-- I use it to balance my table because no one will buy it back."
(fn2) (Oh, by the way, this is how i have to read cases. There may be 200 of these "fn's" in one little bitty case. And, to make maters worse, I only put this second footnote [i.e., "fn"] in to give props to the one professor we have who consistently shuts down gunners...) To the prof who, on the first day of class, renewed my spirit by responding to a would-be gunner's question as follows:
Gunner (holding SMU coffee mug & leaning back far too casually in his completely-non-reclining chair): How should we expect relations with the U.S. to change now that [insert country we hadn't discussed in class] has [insert some random legal action that we hadn't gotten NEAR to discussing in class] and that resulted in [insert some incorrectly-used legal term that we would NEVER get near discussing in class if YOU DON'T LET THE PROF GET PAST INTRODUCING HIS DANG SYLLABUS!!!!!!]?
Then, after a ten second silence, and only after that pristine moment of awkward realization for the gunner and hopeful victory for the other 99 students in the room, our professor responded in his Jersey accent, resounding like a chorus of angels: Now you tell me, what the hell does that have to do with formation of partnerships?! (pronounced: now, you tell me, whut da hell does dat 'ave to do wit foh-ma-shun of potnaships?)
... yes, to you, Oh shutter-down-of-gunners, I have devoted a footnote. I'd love for you to feel special, as you totally made my day... but honestly, no on reads these. Sorry.
