This is how it feels

A Taste of Law School

I have already spent three years in law school. In a year or two, I will be graduating and yet my life in law school is still full of uncertainty. Surprisingly, my conversations with my fellow students revealed that I am not the only one facing the same dilemmas.

I remember the week before my life at the

College

of

Law

started… An officemate who also happened to be a law student told me to go out on gimmicks and attend to all my extracurricular activities before

I begin my law studies because I will not get enough opportunity to do all these once classes begin.

A lawyer-friend also told me to stop and take a good look at myself because in three years time,

I may not be able to recognize who I really am or the person I have become.

Another lawyer-friend also advised me to keep a little piece of myself safely tucked away

and not to let anyone get to me. I felt uneasy about the things I was told.

Studying law suddenly seemed very dangerous and I felt so helpless

and without any idea what studying law is all about.

I wondered hard what it takes to be in law school

and what mysteries lay ahead of me.

Soon enough, I have come to realize that law

school is a place where one can acquire power and privilege… or for many people here,

more power and privilege.

The scariest thing about law school is that its effects are irreversible.

Once you step through those doors

and become a pilgrim in search of a legal career,

your life is changed.

It is really a challenging process in a way

and I’ve got no choice but to undergo this process because I want to be a lawyer.

My first year at law school was a year of test which basically had the potential of making or breaking me. It is the period which determines if I should hold on to my dream of becoming a lawyer

or just content myself with being stuck up as

Human Resource Management practitioner in the government service.

After passing my Civil Law, Criminal Law, Constitutional Law and the rest of the freshmen subjects,

I told myself, “Kaya k o pala. This is a good sign for me to continue on with my legal career.”.

With this came the realization that all I have to do is to work hard and pray harder.

Soon enough, I found out that these two things, hardwork and prayers, are not enough.

Atty. Sol Mawis, my professor in Persons and Family Relations,

kept on telling us in class that

“we cannot survive

College

of

Law

alone,

and we should always pray as if we never prayed and study as if we never studied before”. Because of these reminders, I soon realized the need to befriend my classmates,

join study groups/group digest, and in the process,

learned about how to study law and do research with other people.

Together, we formed Digest Groups,

which is an effective means of helping law students

cope up with the voluminous case assignments.

While this helps, it also has a down side: it is not always a good idea to rely

on someone else’s digest;

one must also find time to read the cases in the original text.

It is also important to keep in mind that the people whom you meet in law school

will eventually become your colleagues and even potential adversaries

once one is already in the practice of law.

Therefore, it would help to bear in mind of the need to be in

good terms with them.

When I reached my second year at law school, I asked myself again,

“what more will I expect? More cases to digest and more law books to read?”

But this time, I’ve learned my lesson. I became a lot more aggressive

and more patience in reading and digesting cases.

Moreover, I became more systematic and more strategic in my studies.

I learned to set my daily schedules for the day,

from the time I wake up till the time I rest my stressful mind

and body from work and school.

I have kept a set of good friends who are always there to support me and

who never fails to secure and provide me a photocopy of SCRA for our assigned cases.

At this juncture, some of my friends and relatives approach me

and seek answers to some of their legal questions, even as they are aware

that I am only a law student. I had a particularly satisfying experience in that regard

when my cousin called me to ask how she should go about having her marriage

annulled because she was no longer happy with it. Thankfully, the question was covered during my freshmen days so I was able to give him a lot of information about marriage, annulment and even cite cases relative thereto. I felt very much like a lawyer. I was able to be authoritative, reserved and professional. I was even able to use legal language and probably too much of it. It felt very good to be playing this role of counselor. It also felt very good to impress my cousin.…

Another interesting aspect of being in law school is that, friends and family act differently toward me now that I am in it. Even strangers react differently when I am introduced as a law student. The down side of it is that some of my high school friends now seem to resent me or are uncomfortable with the fact that I am studying law.

These people may have no idea how hard it is to be in law school.

Studying law requires a lot of sacrifice, more sacrifices and still more and more sacrifices.

It is because there’s no elevator or easy way on becoming a lawyer,

you really have to take the stairs and you have to work all your night.

Despite of, or in spite of these, I have come to realize over the years that

this is what I want to be and what I want to do.

I want to become a lawyer and this is the price I pay. Nevertheless, I still have a lot of patience in life; for I believed that patience is a virtue.

After having a taste of what law school is and

while there may be a lot of uncertainty in my life at the law school,

I know that with determination, patience, consistent labouring on,

and much of God’s providence, I can turn myself into a lawyer.

Not just one, and hopefully not a mediocre one,

but also a

SUCCESSFUL LAWYER.
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*Taken from a lone blog. Unfortunately I couldn't the author of this post, just a pseudonym.