One of the tasks / privileges that is attached to my new (temporary!) administrative designation is the “welcome, first-year students, to law school” talk at orientation. For my own first-year classmates and me, the “now you are off the treadmill” speech our Dean gave was, for better or worse, among the more memorable occasions of our law-school career. I have no aspirations (or ability) to be *that* memorable, but I wouldn’t mind saying *something* that was actually helpful, encouraging, and affirming, especially given the anxieties that, I have to assume, many current and new law students are fighting.
So, what is there to be said? “The law thing” is — notwithstanding the jokes, etc. — an important, exciting, and even (potentially) ennobling enterprise? The law is a profession — perhaps, even, a vocation — and not only an occupation, and so law students have a responsibility to allow themselves to be challenged to become not only providers of legal services, but citizen-leaders and thoughtful law-critics? Do the reading, go to class, see the connections, talk about law with your friends? Don’t try to practice law before you are admitted to the bar and never, ever co-mingle funds? Don’t forget to keep reading good fiction? Ideas?
Posted by Rick Garnett on August 17, 2009 at 09:11 AM
Comments
I still remember Dean Cribbet telling us at orientation, over thirty years ago: “Today you begin to form your professional reputation; it will last a lifetime.” He was right.
Posted by: Pete Alces | Aug 18, 2009 10:55:16 AM
Several years ago during one of these talks I gave at St. John’s, I read the students part of Dr. Seuss’s “Oh, the Places You’ll Go!” after modifying the text to make it more directly applicable to the law school experience. It was one of those ideas that seemed great when I was up late the night before figuring out what to say. In the harsh light of a packed auditorium, not so much.
Posted by: Rob Vischer | Aug 17, 2009 12:33:12 PM
FWIW, my own view is that these sorts of things work best with two parts. First, you can welcome them into the profession, and stress that they are joining a proud profession with an honorable past. Second, you can then stress that law school is so much more than classes and studying: It is three years of their lives, a time when they are surrounded by smart and engaging people, an exciting and fun time to get to know their classmates and to enjoy themselves. Both sides are equally important.
Posted by: Orin Kerr | Aug 17, 2009 10:33:03 AM
I have trouble with the “law is a profession/vocation” business. In reality, law is a business/career. Some people will find it inspiring; others will not.
Being a lawyer is like being a plumber. People come to you when they need help fixing a problem. Your role as a lawyer is to help them fix that problem. This can be ennobling–just as plumbing can be ennobling. You have a different set of tools and work with a different kind of pipes (and shit that clogs it), but if you do your job well, you will (like a plumber) have helped a real person solve a real problem in his/her life.
What law school really does (or should do) is give you the tools and help you to identify which ones to use under particular circumstances.
What’s wrong with that view of the profession?
Posted by: anon | Aug 17, 2009 10:19:46 AM
You can’t win. If you say something practical, then you are not inspiring. If you say something “inspiring” then you are full of bull and not willing to discuss the realities of law school and legal practice.
Posted by: Calvin Hobbes | Aug 17, 2009 10:07:30 AM
Does it have to be rosy? My thought, which is based on something a professor said to our class on the first day, is to say something about “knowing thyself” – perhaps that some of the class should be aware that law school isn’t for everyone, and that if they find themselves in a position where they realize that, they should evaluate where they stand very carefully.
Of course, for those who realize that in their third year, with the loans piled up, there often is no way to change one’s mind and try something else.
Posted by: Jonathan | Aug 17, 2009 9:34:30 AM