-- GabrielleKloppers - 12 Mar 2020

I agree with Jason that perhaps there can be a distinction between school-related and non-school-related social interactions at law school, but I do think they're more blended than initially appears.

Firm meet-and-greets become a way for us to have a nice dinner and a glass of wine on firm dime and hang out with our friends, and class becomes a time to laugh with them at obscure cases. When law school friend groups get together, many are drawn to discussions of class, grading, firms, career and future internships - which would be normal except that we talk about these things A LOT, at any place from a birthday brunch to the bathroom in between class.

One thing that has been very interesting is introducing a non-law-school person into a law-school friend-group, which I've done a few times. Afterwards, you'll ask them how they enjoyed the social interaction. You will find that 9/10 times (maybe that's an overstatement - more like 7/10 but that's still plenty) they'll make a comment about how often y'all talk about law school - and not about the fun stuff either, like some scintillating case or something that truly fascinates you, but something that irks you, like how many hours you've been reading and do you really understand estates?

The opposite can also be true; last Friday night (pre-pandemonium) I settled with a law school friend and a non-law-school friend into our almost weekly ritual of watching a romcom while eating takeout. The conversation turned towards law school, as it usually does when you're talking with law students in any capacity. My non-law-school friend became very interested in a throwaway comment about Trusts, and wanted to know everything we had learnt about it in class. My other friend and I felt this instinctive desire to shy away from it ASAP - as if a genuine desire to know something about the law wasn't up for discussion, but complaining about the mundanity of law school was. It seems to be a strange inclination- but it shows the complexity of this mingling of the social and the pseudo-social-institution of law school.

So, can such a neat line be drawn? Even commiserating about the homogenous elements of law school with friends seems to stamp them in further.

I agree, however, that this isolation has perhaps arbitrarily drawn that line and kept the school separate and more "there" than the "fun" parts if that makes sense. Maybe it's neater in a weird way.

-- GabrielleKloppers - 12 Mar 2020