Being a Legal Skills "Managing Partner"
This year I was the "Managing Partner" (read Teaching Assistant) for my Legal Skills law firm. It was a position I wanted since I was a 1L, and I didn't apply for an Executive Board position on my journal so that I could do it, even though the T.A. position is not as prestigious.
My first week of law school, called "law camp," was awful. I was pretty sure I had just made the worst mistake of my life. I left all my friends, my family, my boyfriend, my pets, my job. I put Patrick in a position where he had to sell his house and move, put myself in a tremendous amount of debt after working half a decade to dig out of debt. I wasn't sure I was going to be successful, or successful enough to make the sacrifice worth it. I didn't have a home when I moved to law school, and just stayed with a friend, indefinitely. I was in a long-distance relationship as Patrick was still in Atlanta, when I expected to have him with me. The future seemed uncertain, and full of dragons. Dragons I wasn't sure I had the strength to face.
My greatest fear is a fear of failing. Even if failure is only a failure to meet the standard I set for myself. That fear kept me out of law school for seven years. The decision to go started a chain of things that I had to do, each one fraught with the chance to fail to live up to expectations: the LSAT, applications, memo writing, reading, outlining, dealing with the Socratic, moot court tryouts, etc. etc. For a long time, I was facing a fear of failure every day. Awful.
But Fred and Stacey-Rae stepped in that first week and helped. The Legal Skills small group structure gave me almost instant friendships. By the end of the first week, I had friends and a support system. I had a chance to use all the real-world people skills that I used all my adult working life; I wasn't really starting over. All my old experience would still be relevant. Legal Skills did that for me. And I felt such a huge debt of gratitude. The confidence, the support, the friendships, the chance to feel like it was all relevant, that my experience and common sense wasn't suddenly obsolete were invaluable.
I am the person I am today, in the position I am today, because of Legal Skills in a large part. And because Fred and Stacey-Rae, and Linda our Managing Partner gave us so much as 1Ls. I wanted to give that back. So I resolved to become a T.A. myself.
This year, I had a chance to give back some measure of what I got. In August, I walked into Law Camp, excited for the year that was to come, but also a little nervous for what was about to happen. What were they going to be like? Would I like them? Would they like me? Would they care?
By the end of the first week, I already knew a bunch of them. Each 1L I met I liked. They were fun, interesting, engaged, hopeful. They were excited, nervous, hardworking, smart, insightful. It was fun to match them to their upperclassmen mentors and then hear back when the match worked. It was odd to see myself in them, and remember how I felt when I was doing the same things there were.
Then the 2Ls came back and their classes started too. They started tired, and maybe a little bitter about Legal Skills. Life sucks Fall of 2L year. Legal Skills is a lot of time and effort, when you don't have the ability to give much of either. I was pretty new to most of them, and more of a peer to the ones who did know me. By the end of the first semester, I was friends with some of them and we had bonded by working on the practicums together, but the others still didn't know me. I felt like there were still 1Ls that I barely knew.
Then this semester started, and we started the semester already a team. Both classes had at least a sense of who I was. And inevitably when things started to go wrong, they came to me and I had a chance to start giving back to them some of what I had received. I got closer to a lot of them, and earned the respect of the others through sheer hard work and dedication. I made some very close friends, friends that I am going to have for years, maybe forever.
In trial planning meetings, to go over ways to make the case work, get evidence admitted, make the witness sweat on cross, it was so enlivening to see that fire come on. With client ET, everything went wrong it seemed. But the 2Ls really interrogated the problem, helped find solutions. Every late night email got a response. Every last minute request was met. It seemed like we were truly partners in the program, which is an amazing feeling.
It ends tomorrow. I am going to miss it so much, because even if I become a Legal Skills adjunct some day, it will never be with this team again. I can't imagine walking away from this school and these people in just four weeks. In my attempt to pay back Fred, Stacey-Rae, and Linda I got far more in return from the 2Ls and 1Ls who I was privileged to serve. I leave, taking with me far more than I left.
My first week of law school, called "law camp," was awful. I was pretty sure I had just made the worst mistake of my life. I left all my friends, my family, my boyfriend, my pets, my job. I put Patrick in a position where he had to sell his house and move, put myself in a tremendous amount of debt after working half a decade to dig out of debt. I wasn't sure I was going to be successful, or successful enough to make the sacrifice worth it. I didn't have a home when I moved to law school, and just stayed with a friend, indefinitely. I was in a long-distance relationship as Patrick was still in Atlanta, when I expected to have him with me. The future seemed uncertain, and full of dragons. Dragons I wasn't sure I had the strength to face.
My greatest fear is a fear of failing. Even if failure is only a failure to meet the standard I set for myself. That fear kept me out of law school for seven years. The decision to go started a chain of things that I had to do, each one fraught with the chance to fail to live up to expectations: the LSAT, applications, memo writing, reading, outlining, dealing with the Socratic, moot court tryouts, etc. etc. For a long time, I was facing a fear of failure every day. Awful.
But Fred and Stacey-Rae stepped in that first week and helped. The Legal Skills small group structure gave me almost instant friendships. By the end of the first week, I had friends and a support system. I had a chance to use all the real-world people skills that I used all my adult working life; I wasn't really starting over. All my old experience would still be relevant. Legal Skills did that for me. And I felt such a huge debt of gratitude. The confidence, the support, the friendships, the chance to feel like it was all relevant, that my experience and common sense wasn't suddenly obsolete were invaluable.
I am the person I am today, in the position I am today, because of Legal Skills in a large part. And because Fred and Stacey-Rae, and Linda our Managing Partner gave us so much as 1Ls. I wanted to give that back. So I resolved to become a T.A. myself.
This year, I had a chance to give back some measure of what I got. In August, I walked into Law Camp, excited for the year that was to come, but also a little nervous for what was about to happen. What were they going to be like? Would I like them? Would they like me? Would they care?
By the end of the first week, I already knew a bunch of them. Each 1L I met I liked. They were fun, interesting, engaged, hopeful. They were excited, nervous, hardworking, smart, insightful. It was fun to match them to their upperclassmen mentors and then hear back when the match worked. It was odd to see myself in them, and remember how I felt when I was doing the same things there were.
Then the 2Ls came back and their classes started too. They started tired, and maybe a little bitter about Legal Skills. Life sucks Fall of 2L year. Legal Skills is a lot of time and effort, when you don't have the ability to give much of either. I was pretty new to most of them, and more of a peer to the ones who did know me. By the end of the first semester, I was friends with some of them and we had bonded by working on the practicums together, but the others still didn't know me. I felt like there were still 1Ls that I barely knew.
Then this semester started, and we started the semester already a team. Both classes had at least a sense of who I was. And inevitably when things started to go wrong, they came to me and I had a chance to start giving back to them some of what I had received. I got closer to a lot of them, and earned the respect of the others through sheer hard work and dedication. I made some very close friends, friends that I am going to have for years, maybe forever.
In trial planning meetings, to go over ways to make the case work, get evidence admitted, make the witness sweat on cross, it was so enlivening to see that fire come on. With client ET, everything went wrong it seemed. But the 2Ls really interrogated the problem, helped find solutions. Every late night email got a response. Every last minute request was met. It seemed like we were truly partners in the program, which is an amazing feeling.
It ends tomorrow. I am going to miss it so much, because even if I become a Legal Skills adjunct some day, it will never be with this team again. I can't imagine walking away from this school and these people in just four weeks. In my attempt to pay back Fred, Stacey-Rae, and Linda I got far more in return from the 2Ls and 1Ls who I was privileged to serve. I leave, taking with me far more than I left.