Someone escaped from Tucson City Court last week. The prisoner managed to run down the hall and out the front door in handcuffs, all the while stripping out of his orange inmate’s jumpsuit.
I hope I’m never in court wearing handcuffs. But when I’m an attorney, I will understand perfectly wanting to escape the courtroom.
Right now, law school admission and rejection letters are coming back to applicants here at the UA and across the country. I cannot imagine a bigger gap between where you start out as a prospective law student and where you end up three years later.
Law school is kind of like high school. There are lockers in the basement at law school. During the first year, we’re assigned to a “homeroom” where we spend a class period everyday. We have a fucking prom. Déjà vu all over again.
There’s also a lot of drama in law school. It makes sense. The whole legal profession is so reputation-driven, there’s bound to be a lot of sussing-out, and reading-too-much-into, and in-between-the-lines analyzing. The thing about law school drama is that it can be kind of … well, gross. Whether so-and-so hooked up at a house party is sort of titillating when you’re 16. When the participants involved are pushing 40 and have kids, it’s sort of revolting.
I spent the first year of law school in denial: I jumped at any excuse to fly out to Pasadena where three of my friends lived in a $1,500 two-bedroom apartment that was infested with spiders. One guy lived in one-half of the living room that he converted into a bedroom by erecting a PVC pipe screen with burgundy curtains. When his girlfriend visited from France and there was the persistent threat of them “doing it,” the other roommates stayed in their rooms or made a mad dash for the front door when it was necessary. I thought the whole living arrangement was awesome. I couldn’t think of anything better than to announce at the end of my visit that I was gonna set up a cot in their kitchen and work at the Cheesecake Factory.
That first year, I took up painting, writing, going to hip hop dance classes and bicycling around town in the dark, which I quickly abandoned after someone tried to abduct a girl riding her bike at the corner of East Elm Street and North Tyndall Avenue. The corner of Elm and Tyndall was about 100 feet from my apartment. My friends started affectionately referring to Tucson as “the rape ghetto.”
I managed to drop everything else pretty quickly as well when my second year hit. I don’t really remember much, because it was a blur: taking too many classes, writing legal memos and pretending like I knew what I was talking about, agonizing about finding a job.
The funny thing is, the closer I get to graduation, the less I’m agonizing anymore. I’m in my third year of law school, and everything seems insignificant as the big picture unfolds. Which is not to say that the study of law has become insignificant. It’s much more meaningful the closer I get to becoming a lawyer and being responsible for advocating on behalf of someone else. We’re so used to advocating for ourselves in life — throughout school, in particular.
As for sticking up for the profession, I’m still reluctant. I was in an elevator one afternoon and struck up a conversation with a woman who was a legal assistant. She had had it up to her eyeballs with lawyers that day. “Are you guys all like this?!” she asked emphatically. I told her that yes, all current and future attorneys were a bunch of aggressive, neurotic, type-A personalities. Five minutes later, I waited patiently for the light to turn green and let an SUV cut in front of me just to make extra sure I was going against stereotype.
And what about that guy who escaped from city court? At least he won’t go hungry. Rocco’s Pizzeria on Broadway displayed a happy sign on its marquee Sunday evening: “Naked Convicts Eat Free.”
Rui Wang is — in case you haven’t been beaten over the head already by this fact — a third-year law student. She can be reached at letters@wildcat.arizona.edu.