Drew Calamaro ‘21
Satire Editor
Our semester is ending with silence, as we consume Netflix and wait to die of loneliness. Therefore, like Thoreau writing Walden alone in the woods, or Montaigne, alone in his tower writing his Essais, or an administrator writing an email telling a student they have twenty-four hours to appeal a decision, I have taken it upon myself to write to you my unfiltered[1] and unchecked[2] ideas of how to live in a post-COVID-19 world. This advice column is my closing gift of wisdom to you, 1Ls, as you go out into the world[3] toward the end of this semester and beyond.[4]
If you aren’t on a journal, you are a failure, and you always will be.
Did you know that journals are run by the most impressive, prestigious, and learned students of this school and that you’ll never ever measure up to them if you aren’t on a journal? Sure, most successful people in the world weren’t on a journal, and sure, it doesn’t actually provide you with foundational skills necessary to life, happiness, and a successful career, and sure, law schools are full of insecure people that judge anyone who does anything different and most of them will amount to a statistical blip on the ninety-five year generational scales, but you are still a total failure for not being on a journal. Just remember with shame.
Pass/fail is going to ruin your chances of getting that clerkship.
Not the economic damage from the virus, not the personal toll the virus is going to take on everyone in the country including yourself. No, what will ruin you is pass/fail, which means you won’t be able to get above a 3.6 this semester, which means that you won’t be able to get that clerkship with the one federal judge who can feed you to the Supreme Court which I can only assume passes you on to Nirvana. You need to work for that elderly person swaddled in robes from the Lord of the Rings set, or else all of your planning is for naught. Abandon hope now.
Lawyers do NOT hold the power to help real people experiencing real harms that they think lawyers can help them with.[5]
Yes, lawyers have the power to make the law, to affect companies, institutions, and nations.[6] Yes, law is made and not found, and will eventually be made by any law student, past or present. Yes, it is the job of the school to ensure that you employ this power with integrity and responsibility.[7] However, even though you know you have the power to help people and to do the right thing, you should never, EVER use that power. If you must use it because, say, someone under your chain-of-command messed up what is objectively a no-brainer decision and you have to reverse it, wait until that decision is made public and make sure you allow the ensuing uproar to occur for a full day at least before reversing that decision. And if anyone questions you on Zoom as to why you didn’t use that power sooner or even asks you what color the sky is, just hide behind a privacy act.
You are better than the way certain administrations have acted.
I don’t have any snarky things to say other than you do it better. Like the whole thing. Go, do it. Figure out how to do it and make it ALL run better in a couple months.
Asking about mentorship is a fun and original way to “break the ice” or, should I say, “break the zoom panes!” with lawyers at your firm events.
The more firm dinners that you attend, the more you realize how important and original of a question asking about mentorship is. Other questions that you should ask are, “How should I bring in business to the firm as a junior associate?,”[8] and, “With your firm struggling in this recession, how are you managing to keep clients?” This is no time to second guess that inner voice telling you to stop being boring, uninformed, or gauche. Forge ahead with those incredible questions, and you will find success wherever the winds take you.[9]
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dac6jk@virginia.edu
[1] Pre-edits.
[2] Id.
[3] Grocery stores.
[4] But I couldn’t help but wonder, was this my gift of wisdom to the reader, or was it the reader gifting me with the opportunity to selflessly provide them with this knowledge?
[5] Citation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNHRfftnfCk at 2:50.
[6] Id.
[7] Id.
[8] You are able and expected to bring in business to the firm as soon as you are hired, since you will almost certainly know about the law.
[9] So long as inward eye-rolls among practicing lawyers count as successes.