April 23, 2009: Overstanding; Light Like a Feather, Heavy as Lead

April 23, 2009

Overstanding: Light Like a Feather, Heavy as Lead
 
With good reason, prospective law students enter their first year of law school eager to master Contracts, Torts, and Property; a needed requirement for success in finals and beyond. After three years of law school, one realizes that essential education is gained by osmosis. In law school you may hear the crazy hypothetical thrown out here or there (“what if the facts were absolutely different, and this was before International Shoe?”), but for the most part you are embarking on three years surrounded by intelligent people who appreciate IDEA and ideas.

Brother Cornel West recently visited campus and led a reasoning session about our current age. His message to us soon to be young lawyers was “do not get adjusted to injustice.” 

Like many of my fellow classmates, I have recently been reflecting without the use of a mirror. During law school you are always “on the jog;” there is time to slow down and breathe, but it is best not to stop. A benefit of this is tremendous stability. The routine becomes the all too familiar: classes, finals, summer job, rinse, and repeat. For 3L’s however, the train stops here. Next year will no longer begin in September.

With graduation only days away, the class of ‘09 knows that we did not come to law school in order to simply finish law school. The journey continues.

Finally, my advice to students entering law school is (1) bring great movies, it will make the year go a lot smoother (I could not have survived without my Lion King); and (2) take advice from the left side of your chest.