Jacob Jones ‘21
Events Editor
Last Wednesday, members of the class of 2021 gathered in Caplin Pavilion to celebrate making it halfway through law school. Really this is quite the accomplishment. We’ve made it through a pass-fail LRW course, taken all of the 1L classes that would make us capable small-town lawyers in the 1890s, and worked at a summer internship that was at least tangential to actual legal problems in the world. For my classmates who are going into Big Law, law school was 95% over when they finished OGI and accepted their offers.[1] For public service folks, some of the stress of 1L continues, but in a more chill atmosphere. The halfway mark was a bit of an approximation, but it was close enough. A few celebrity faculty members who rarely come to these events, like the members of the Office of Private Practice and the Registrar’s Office, made it out to share in the merriment and free catered food.
2Ls raise a glass half-full in Caplin Pavilion on Wednesday for the Midway Toast led by Dean Risa Goluboff. Photo courtesy twitter.com/RisaGoluboff.
Dean Goluboff spoke to commemorate the event. She talked about how as we start law school, we are immersed in an environment where we are always around our classmates. We all do orientation together, we have all of our classes together, we perform at Dandelion together, and we cluster at firm events avoiding networking interactions together. Then, we go to different cities and states for our summer experiences, and most of us come back for OGI where we interview to go to different cities. During 2L, we all start to branch out on our different paths, with some of us doing clinics, others focusing on doctrinal classes, some others doing an intense study of why it’s ok for big fish to eat smaller fish,[2] and, lastly, some people going full Hogwarts and studying the mystical art of tax law. Because we don’t see each other as much, the Dean pointed out how each occasion we have to come back together at the same place and time is special. She emphasized that we probably won’t be back together in this way until graduation.
Dean Goluboff also stressed how the latter half of law school is still important, despite much of the emphasis on the first year or so. She said that during the recession, there was talk of shortening the ABA three-year requirement into only two years. Dean Goluboff was sincerely opposed to shortening law school because the extra year gives us the chance to broaden our horizons, become more informed lawyers, and gain a more holistic education.[3] Dean Golubuff then encouraged us to look back and reflect on the changes we’ve made since we started law school. I encourage the reader to take a moment to look back and reflect. Take your time.
What changes have I made since I started on this law school journey? Is half of a law degree worth anything? A statistical analysis of future earnings would probably say no, if you only ever had half of a law degree. But there’s more to having half of a law degree than just the money. When you watch Cops and your relative asks if the police can do that, you get to intelligently respond “it depends.” Or when your friend thinks their contractor is ripping them off and asks if they can get out of their contract, you get to be all professional and say “I’m not allowed to give legal advice.”[4] Half of a law school degree makes you inquisitive. You get to see a fender bender and, after thinking hard and figuring out that it was probably a tort, you realize any dispute will just be hashed out by insurance companies.
Mostly, finishing half of law school lets us look back and say “that was easy.” This is a lie we tell ourselves so that we can justify going forward into the actual practice of law, which is just as stressful but with more hours and money. But also we actually did come this far, which means we’ve accomplished something, which probably means we can accomplish other things too, like having a successful legal career. But the real successful legal career is the friends we’ve made along the way.
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jmj3vq@virginia.edu
[1] Those seeking clerkships had to try for an extra semester. Woe to them.
[2] Also known as “mergers and acquisitions” and “antitrust.”
[3] The author of this piece takes no official stance on whether law school should be three years or two years. However, his wallet is strongly in favor of a two-year program.
[4] And even if I could, I still would have no idea. Was there bargained for consideration?