Spring Break pep talk to myself, and lawyers are good, mother.

I am 75% of the way through my first year of law school. That blows my mind. I still feel like that confused, timid guy who walked in here in August hoping that I had made the right choice about what I want to do with the rest of my life. I guess I still am confused and timid guy sometimes, but I think I'm less so. Mostly right now I'm tired, but I'm definitely not worried about this being the right choice.
You see, the supervisor of the skills course I'm in has said three or four times this semster, that this is the semester that 1Ls at Mitchell start to feel like attorneys. And she said she was happy to be a part of that. This is the skills course that's had me negotiating contracts, and for which I'll be giving an oral argument at the end of the semester. So, when she made the statement, she was referring to that. And, I don't know, maybe that will make me feel like a lawyer. I'm gonna try to leave that door open.
But what I do know is that I have already been getting what I want out of law school--I'm already feeling helpful. I'm helping people right now, every week. I get to come in every Saturday and talk with people about their problems and help them with paperwork that can be overwhelmint. I get to help them fram their questions for attorneys and make sure they understand what's the attorney's saying. Some weeks (including this one), it's hard to remember what I'm doing here. I can get inundated with trying to remember every detail of Contracts and Civil Procedure, both of which are important beyond the grade I'm trying to get. But in that quest for detail, I sometimes lose sight of why the detail is important. Why do I need to know about personal jurisdiction? It's not because Professor Janus is going to test me on it--I mean, he did test me on it Thursday. But that's the immediate, and frankly, small concern. I need to know about personal jurisdiction because one day I may want to help a client with a problem, and the help could hinge on the court's lack of personal jurisdiction. Who knows?
That's what I need to keep in mind.
And I need to keep it foremost in my mind, because I am really tired right now. Just emotionally exhausted. And the secret of Spring Break is there's not really that much time off. It's a week in name, but I haven't been outlining all the way along (like I said I would), so I've got to get that caught up. And because of midterms, I haven't been able to start next week's reading like I normally would. So, I'm off my reading schedule. This all means, I'm working half of the upcoming week to get everything back together, so that the next half of the semester, I can march through this with a little more organization and happiness. I wasn't ready for this semester to be so much busier than last semester. I worked really hard, but I never felt I got myself into a good rhythem the way I did by the end of last semester. So, now is my time to get it together.
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My mother keeps saying, "I don't know what I'm going to do when you become a lawyer." I can sort of understand why she says this. The only times she's had to deal with a lawyer were times of extreme stress--divorce, failure of a business. And while one attorney was on her side, there were at least one who opposed her. So, I get it. But when she got in trouble, she didn't hesitate to go to a lawyer for help. And that says something.
And more than that, there are so many attorneys who are doing good things. Helping out people facing foreclosure, fighting for civil rights, defending people who are accused of a crime, and doing billions of other things their clients need them to do.
It just seems funny to me that people only see attorneys as schills for big business, or as oily snake-charmers. I'm becoming an attorney because I want to help people, and in that respect, I'm in the vast majority of my class.

Progress...random thoughts on a theme....

This weekend, it snowed in St. Paul. A lot. We were expected to get somewhere between 10 and 20 inches, and I think we ended up getting 13 inches.* Which wouldn't be depressing, except that this past week it was well above freezing and we were finally making progress toward seeing the grass. So now it feels like all that progress is going to be lost. Not that we were actually doing anything other than wait for the temparature to rise.
But as I was going to the gym this morning, I noticed something. It was light out. The laboring through the dark days of winter is over. Yeah, it's not exactly spring, but the days are noticeably longer. And that feels like spring is coming.
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And this week is midterms, which doesn't seem right. But, I have been at school, working hard, for half a semester. So, that means midterms, I guess. I only have two, so that's good. But it's kind of frightening to me that I'm halfway through my second semester already. The first semester went quickly, but I felt like I was just hanging on and trying to not to fall apart.
This semester, things have kicked into a higer notch and I am busier, but I don't feel the same sort of craze. I'm (somewhat) calmer. I don't know if you'd notice it if you observed me last semester and this semester, because I'm still working hard. But, I think I'm understanding things now. I feel more sure of myself. And I'm sure that I have time to get things done. I've joined a couple other groups and I've taken on a couple other volunteer projects. I mean, I don't want to shock anyone, but I'm enjoying law school. You know, mostly.
And that's good. I'm moving forward.
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Spring break is coming up! Right after finals, I'm gonna...well, I'm gonna start working on my Contracts outline. But I'm not going to have to go to class that week. So that's good. And I will get out of St. Paul for a while.
A friend of mine is getting married in Atlanta, where it will likely be 60 plus degrees. A lot of my college friends are going to be there and it should be a fun time. I'm so looking forward to it. Weddings are just the best. Watching two people come together and say, I'm gonna spend the rest of my life with you, is humbling. It's like watching someone grow up in a matter of seconds.
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One of the big things I like about the blog is that I can look back and see what I was thinking about a couple weeks or years ago. A lot of the time I will see I've been chewing on the same problems or issues for a long time, but often I will see where I've made progress. And that's a good feeling.
Taking a look back 2 years ago on the blog I was trying to figure out what to do with myself after losing my job. I'd really just started working on the Gumshoe**. I was maybe just starting to work myself out of the rut my life had become.
But now. Now, it feels all different. I don't have answers to all the questions I've struggled with, and sometimes I feel like I've put off a lot of things (like getting a house and having kids). But ultimately, I am okay with that. I look at my parents. They were both never really thrilled with their jobs, and they took that personally. And I know that part of the way I reacted to my rut was due to their example. Not to be critical of them, but just to explain. I took it personally that I ended up doing filing jobs and I stopped feeling like I could do more. I submitted to the idea that the world, or fate, or God, or whatever was steering my life, knew where I belonged. And putting shit away was all I had to offer. I was well on my way to following in my parent's footsteps. And I was going to be miserable.
But now. On my worst day of law school, I know I'm going where I want to go, at least in a general way. I think I may find a job that will make me happy. And just that prospect is enough to make me smile. I mean, I don't know. I could end up doing miserable work for miserable people, I suppose. But, I don't think so. I think I'm on the right track now.
And sometimes I even think my time in the rut was worth it, if only because I can really appreciate the difference.

*Note 1. 13 inches in New York would've been the lead story on all the national network nightlies, and caused another terrible round of storm namings like, "snow-magedon", or "snow-poclypse". The nation would be inundated with stories about how hard this kind of strom is on people. In Minnesota, this storm was met with tired indignation, but also with the resolve to get shoveling before the snow gets heavier. The lesson? I don't want to use the word "whiney" or say things like "lack of perspective", but, you know...
**Note 2. I have been working on the next story, but one of the biggest problems with the last one is the lack of standard publication dates. People would forget about what happened and I think the story lost its momentum because of that. So, my plan is to have a couple episodes ready to go before I start throwing them up here. But, I hope people are at least a little excited about it.

Why can't I just feel happy about the weather?

So much of law school is dealing with disappointment. Not getting the grades you're used to. Not getting the clerkship you want. Not having time to do things you want. Not winning all the little battles that make up a day and a semester in law school.

I've dealt with my share of disappointment in the past, but it all feels very different now. It's all so much more dramatic. Some of that difference is because I'm paying money to be here. And some of it is because this is a competitive environment and it's bringing out competitive feelings in me that I'm not really used to and not sure I'm comfortable with*. But, I think a lot of the difference is because I'm finally seeing where I want my life to be and I'm trying to steer my life in that direction.

And everything that goes wrong feels like a message to me that I am not going to get there.

That's how much pressure I'm putting on myself. And I know it's not healthy. But there it is.

The back story to this post is that I applied for a few clerkships last month and today was the day I was supposed to hear back from them about an interview. I say, "I" applied, but really, it's me and somewhere around 1,000 other law students. So, I shouldn't be surprised or disappointed that today I heard that I did not land an interview. But, as you've probably put together from my post thus far, I am.

I don't know. I didn't expect that once I'd figured my life out that everything would fall into place, but I did not prepare myself for the amount of disappointment that would be involved in this first year of law school. I didn't prepare myself for how much of everything is just beyond my control. I think I thought that working hard would directly correlate into success. And I suppose there is some correlation, but it is not a direct correlation. You can't just pour time and effort into things and expect they will go your way, which makes sense, but can also be disheartening.

And I think being disheartened is starting to be a theme for me with law school right now. But not in any specific way. I mean, yes, I didn't get the clerkships I wanted. And there are some things I wish would go differently. But, aside from things turning out the way I want them to, there's no one thing, or set of things, that if they were different, I would say would guarantee my success, or happiness. So, that's just life I guess.

I suppose once I'm out of law school, I'll miss out on jobs, and I'll lose cases, or have negotiations go poorly. And I'll just have to deal with it. So I guess this is just part of life.

I just wish I didn't feel like I was in such a vulnerable part of my life. Which is another way to say, I wish I could have a better perspective on how much every little battle matters. Is losing out on these clerkships going to relegate me to not getting a good job next summer? And once I try to join the workforce after that? Probably not. I guess not. Well, I certainly hope not.

But I don't know, and that's just how it is. So it's on to the next plan. And I need to remember that this plan might turn out better than the other plan. That too is not something I have complete control over.

*Note 1. I'm a horrible person. I just found out a guy in my section dropped out for reasons unknown and one of my first thoughts was, "how is this going to affect the curve?" Nice. The topic of my competitiveness should get its own post soon.

Grades...

Grades came in last week.

As you know if you've been reading for a while, I don't want to discuss my grades. I've heard other people talking about their grades--like actually stating what they got--and I really find it off-putting. I don't want to talk about my grades. But.

I really want to talk about my grades. Not how I did so much as how I feel about them. Which is almost abstract enough that you wouldn't need to know what I got in order to relate to what I'm saying. Right?

Anyway. So, I feel pretty good about how things turned out. I wasn't happy with all of them, but I was happy with enough of them. So, it's not what I got that bothers me. What bothers me is, what do they mean?

They don't really measure what I know. I mean, they do in some way. You can't do well on an exam without having some knowledge and ability. Probably. But when you involve the curve, then the letters you're assigned don't even intend to signify what you learned. They mean to signify how you stand in relation to the rest of your class. They're meant to sort you into a class ranking, so that prospective employers can look at your grades quickly and decide what they mean about you. But that doesn't really tell me what they mean.

And maybe that's not important, but I still feel those grades. I feel them as clearly as a proclamation. They're either telling me I'm not working hard enough, or that I'm not going to be a good attorney. Or they're telling me I'm doing okay. I'm on the right track. Or maybe they're saying you are lucky. One answer changed on a multiple choice test, or one magic word missing from an essay, and I could be higher or lower.

Grades are arbitrary.

And yet they are important. They're important to prospective employers, and considering that it's time to start thinking about summer employment, that means they're important. So. I guess that's all there is. Blah.

Follow up letter to Albert Pujols...

Dear Mr. Pujols,

As you may remember from my last letter to you on this site, I have been engaged in learning the process of negotiation at my law school. And this made me appreciate the situation you're in now as you negotiate with the Cardinals.

Well let me tell you a tale, Mr. Pujols, and you can decide how, or if, this applies to your situation.

This past Tuesday, I was assigned to negotiate a fictional situation involving the price of Christmas trees in Michigan. I was "representing" a group of sellers who were looking to continue their relationship with a charitble group, my opponent. Because it was a charity I was negotiating against, my "client" was not concerned about making money, but they were farmers and couldn't afford to take a huge loss. I would be negotiating against another student and we were given parameters in which our "clients" would feel comfortable allowing us to make a deal on their behalf. I was supposed to get a number of terms, but three of the most important were that the contract would be for 10,000 trees, at $33 to $35 a tree, and contain a clause that protected my client in case storms, flooding, or drought caused the crop to fail. Pretty basic, really.

So, I prepared for this assignment, by doing the assigned reading, all of which stressed the importance of finding common ground and being able to compromise. I took this to heart and drafted some options that would allow my "client" to be protected and still be of interest to the other side. I felt good. I thought the other student and I would be able to negotiate a deal that would make both our "clients" happy.

And then I walked into the negotiation. Long story short, my opponent decided to lowball me.* Like hardcore. We did agree on 10,000 trees, but my opponent offered $12 a tree, or a $250,000 loss for my client. I balked. I balked, but I was was thrown off. It was insulting and I think people in the real world equivalent of my situation would have walked out there. But I was being graded, so I had to stay and continue negotiating. After 5 minutes of fighting, in which he refused to come up at all, we decided we wouldn't come to an agreement on the price, so we moved on. He agreed to allow the weather-protection clause, but only if we agreed to allocate all possible inventory to him. Which means that if there were a horrendous event that would cause my "client" to lose inventory, we would have to sell all we could to them--garaunteeing a loss and most likely bankrupting my "client". I balked. And I became very frustrated. I mean, here we are, two law students play-acting a situation where we've been told our goals are to be reasonable and to negotiate what our "clients" would want. And he was gunning me. I was so upset. I felt this guy was trying to take advantage of me. And I took it personally. And all I had at stake was 14 points.

The reason I bring this up is because there are stories floating around the internet saying how things are going the wrong way in your negotiation.** And I'm saying, in a small way, I can relate. It's easy to know you're being reasonable and to know that the other side is being ridiculous. And you obviously have a lot more on the line than I did with my stupid 14 points. I just hope the Cardinals are looking at things more rationally than the person I was negotiating against me. I hope you guys can find common ground.

Mr. Pujols, I really would like to see you sign with the Cardinals. I'd love to see you end your career with them. But, I know things don't always work out that way. And if they're not giving you the value you think you should get, I hope you walk away. It'll suck not to see you at first base, if that happens. It would be weird not to look forward to your every at bat. But honestly, the Cardinals are a huge organization, and they likely can afford to pay you a huge contract. And you deserve it. You honestly do, sir.

But, I hope you don't take it personally. I'm sure they don't mean to make you feel devalued or disrespected. They aren't gunning you. They know how much you mean to the fans and to the club--they'd have to be insane not to know how much you mean. They may just be putting a different number on the value.

Anyway, good luck to you in your negotiations.

joe

PS. Please don't sign with the Cubs. I can handle you in pretty much any uniform, but not that one.

*Note 1. In law school, when another student tries to show you up or stick it to you, that student is called a gunner. And this was a total gunner move.

**Note 2. And I have no idea whether these guys know what they're talking about or not. I'm inclined to hope not and cite the agreement both sides have to not leak anything.