The Secret

(This is Tucson)

I feel a bit patronized. My professors lecture on the steep learning curve that we 1L’s are about to ascend. Lawyers tell me that the fist year will “change the way I think” without any factual details. 2L’s tell me that things will just “click” and all of a sudden I’ll “get it”.

I wouldn’t have thought that I was missing any greater understanding had it not been for their mysterious insinuations. I’m not lost, but now I’m just really curious, and skeptical as to whether there is, in fact, any epiphany awaiting me.

Law school is not as hard as I thought it would be. The horror stories are personal horror stories. Everyone has their own problems. I do not mind vagueness in my studies, actually it reassures me that I am not getting as slanted a viewpoint as a bright line rule would have signaled.

I suspect that the mental revolution that everyone is talking around is directly related to vagueness in Law. Law which is written down in words which they themselves does not have exact meaning. Society imposes structure and meaning on these words- decisions must be made, liability must be assigned and order must be kept. But there is no underlying static truth. To this I say: So what! Everything is like that.

My professors are not-so-subtly praising the common law system (over the civil law system, where laws were written out explicitly for every little motion of every pinky finger of every four-year-old living in London). Common law apparently relies more heavily on the interpretation of the judges, the rational of the more general rule.

Who knew I would be so full of myself when I entered law school, to think that I have understood the game? The inconsistencies of my ego astound me.