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Predictions

I suppose I can just be That Bitter Person Giving The Dire Warnings. Here is what I say to you, oh 1L who googles my blog with phrases like "bottom of law school class":

75% of your class will not be in the top 25% of your class. There is a good chance that despite all of your ambitions and desires, you will end up just like me - hanging tight with the other three-quarters of your class. Look! These guys talk about it here too!

And if you are in the bottom 75% of your class: You will probably not be on law review. You will not be pursued like the Holy Grail by large law firms wanting to throw lots of money at you. You will not be eligible to apply for most judicial clerkships. In fact, you may not be able to interview on campus for any jobs, at all, ever. Not because you're a bad person, but because the majority of the people in your class won't either. It isn't anything personal.

While I admit I am bitter, I promise you I don't begrudge anyone their accomplishments. I don't study all that much, because I really liked the life I had before I went to school. By the time I realized I had to study a hell of a lot more to make it into the top half of my class, I had already bombed my first semester. (I was also falling like a rock into the depths of self-loathing about my grades, and that doesn't help with the studying either.) I am excited that I know someone who is clerking at the Tax Court, and someone who's going to be clerking for the District Court. I'm glad I know some big firm lawyers because they will give me someone to call so I can bypass voicemail hell.

But no one seems to talk about is the rest of the population - the bottom 75%. Me. And 75% of every law school class, everywhere. I wish there were more people blogging about school who weren't on law review or journals, or applying for Supreme Court clerkships, or whatever makes you the bestest law student ever. There seems to be a real fear of discussing getting a C in Civil Procedure, or of failing the MPRE, or anything that doesn't scream "SUCCESS!"

I have classmates who failed the MPRE the first time who flew home rather than take it again here - they didn't want anyone to know they failed it. That strikes me as profoundly sad - that law school can make smart, competent people who had a difficult time with 120 minutes of multiple choice questions so ashamed that they would rather lie than admit to "not success." It's weird, and it's fucked up - and I don't think there is a damn thing that I can do about it.

But I wish there was. Because like it or not, the majority of people in your law school class aren't going to be in that magical top X% - numbers just don't work that way. I wish I hadn't gone into law school thinking that I would be the mathematical exception. Not thinking even - counting on and depending on being in that top 25% or top 10%. But I wasn't, and I'm still not. I am ordinary.

There are worse things I could be.

Full post as published by My So-Called Internet-Based Life on November 20, 2007 (boomark / email).