On (the hopes of) becoming a lawyer

Saturday morning, 9/21/11
Recovering from the first week of law school


I recently wrote a friend from college who seemed to be agonizing over the LSAT.   Having performed not so well on the test myself - - my score landed just below the 25th percentile of this year's entering class at NYU (and every other school that offered me an acceptance) - - I thought I was in a good position to tell him, "it's not just the LSAT that counts."  To my surprise, he responded that I was the first person to tell him that I knew why I wanted to become a lawyer.  

The first week of law school was, to say the least, exhausting.  Every professor made it clear that they would put two of my greatest weaknesses, public speaking and spontaneous thinking, to a rigorous test.  My classmates not only seem bright and driven, but also display above-average eloquence.  To add to this frightening journey, my Contracts professor is a [in]famous libertarian scholar.  (Reading his first email, I thought, "wait, the Richard Epstein?") 

But here is my competitive edge: it turns out that indeed, I am one of the blessed few who have an idea of why they entered law school.  I am okay with being laughed at by 89 classmates over a question of contract law, so long as I can somehow obtain the skills to become a persuasive advocate for social justice throughout my law school career.   

So, here we go.