True L

So I know back in the day (read: elementary, middle, high school) it always burned me, and it makes me sound like a tremendous nerd, but there is something exciting about the first day of school. Attribute it to new pens, seeing friends, or returning to a routine after three weeks of dealing with an upended life (the result of a recent move (within the same city)) and excessive bureaucracy (everything that needs to be completed before the start of school, including loans, health insurance, bills, parking permits, etc.), but it always holds such promise. Whether or not it delivers, only time can tell…

What does it say about me that here, in the final countdown to second year starting, I’m far more concerned that I haven’t figured out my scheduled workout times than that I’ve only received one of the casebooks I ordered online?

(Presumably something very different than what my need to schedule workouts says about me. But seriously, we get busy, and it gets too late to run in my totally-fine-but-let’s-not-get-lost-alone-in-skimpy-running-clothes-at-night neighborhood, and the gyms around here are far too expensive, and I’m not exactly going to get good cardio running in place in my apartment, and I NEED MY WORKOUTS or else I get super cranky and evidently caps-lock-y. And nobody feels good about that.)

It makes sense to start any legal-y blog with a disclosure, so here goes. I like law school. A lot. This blog is the anti-One L, Paper Chase, [Insert other terrifying law school story here]. (None of which I have read/seen, by the way. I was deliberate about avoiding the panic mentality of some entering law students.) I do not go to Harvard, but I do attend a good school in a big city, I study hard, and I give myself plenty of breaks. That said, two big things go into the making of my attitude, and one big note is necessary:

1. I worked hard before law school. I had several jobs and went to grad school at night. I answered to many and felt responsible for at least 40 other people in addition to myself at any given moment. 

2. I want to enter a very particular area of the law, and I know roughly what I need to do to get there. I’m not overly concerned with some of the typical tracks in law school, and I try not to pay attention to the mass hysteria that seems to spread through these places come finals time, moot court try outs, and law review write on. While I have my share of stress-out freak-outs, for the most part I allow myself to not care quite as much as my peers. And, I should note, I’m still a fine student, so maybe it’s doing me well.

3. I wish I had written this blog last year. 1L is, according to legal lore, the worst year of law school, and I liked it just fine. I wish I could have put together a collection of my adventures to show others embarking on the same journey that it is possible to do so and not hate your life. But TrueL rhymes with 2L, so maybe it worked out well that I’m starting now anyway. I hope my 1L attitude can carry through into this year and provide for some entertaining reading.

With that out of the way, enjoy my exploits. I lead a pretty typical 2L life with classes, an internship, and friends both within and without the law campus walls. I have a penchant for the awkward and embarrassing and fully enjoy sharing those stories with the masses. I hope you can laugh at with me and, if you are a current, future, or past law student, relate a little and generally help me to dispel the myth that law school must suck.