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Law in Contemporary Society
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Titles are too Creative for Law Students-- By MaxOffsay - 09 Mar 2017Deer in the HeadlightsWhen I first heard that this class only required writing two 1,000-word essays, I thought, “Sure beats another final! I can write 1,000 words on anything!” Little did I know that the assignment would be just that: to write 1,000 words on ANYTHING. When it was announced in class I felt myself tense up, hoping that more directions were to follow; that there would be some clarification or direction. But none came. After class, I went to office hours as I usually do, but this time my main motivation was to see if I could pry some knowledge of what was expected of me and perhaps get some insight or suggestion on what to write about. Eben saw right through me; he knew I was trying to weasel my way into having him decide my topic for me and he did not give in. I went home determined to get started on the essay that night and I found myself sitting in front of a blank document for the next day and a half. Eventually, I gave up and decided to tackle my reading for the week, thinking that I would get back to it later. Over the next few days I spoke to a number of classmates about the essay and almost everyone had the same response: “I hate open ended questions…why couldn’t he have just assigned us a topic?”A Resume Full of Merit BadgesYour average law student is not the most creative person. To get into a school like this, the schools do not really inquire deeply into the creativity levels of perspective students (lets not even discuss levels of courage…). The life of a perspective law student up until this point has been a series of boxes that needed checking. High school: Get good grades; get involved in extra currciulars; do well on the SAT. College: Again, get good grades; get leadership roles in campus organizations; do well on the LSAT. One friend described it as a collection of law school merit badges, things that must be collected so that one day when the Columbia Law School admissions counselor looks at my “sash”, they see that I’ve done all of the prerequisite things expected of me and hand me the final merit badge: a law school acceptance. Nowhere along this journey was I required to answer the tough questions – or maybe even more to the point, decide which tough questions were worth answering. The path was fairly formulaic and what was valued was the ability to do what was expected and asked of me as well as or better than everyone else. Luckily for me, I’m good at that. I was able to check the relevant boxes and receive the required merit badges. Even the first semester of law school, while more challenging than the previous endeavors, operated in much this same way and I was very happy with the results.A Creative Path ForwardAs I sit here writing this essay, it acts as a miniscule symbolic version of the major problem on the horizon. What’s Next? I had “known” that I wanted to go to law school ever since I can remember and everything I’ve done before this has been calculated to get me to where I am. But now I must decide where to go from here and that is a much less determined path and one that requires more than merely checking boxes or doing what is expected of me. I suspect that a lot of my fellow classmates are in a similar situation and we are all instinctively looking for another path to follow where we can simply do what we are told and excel at it. That is one of the things that is so appealing to many of us about the Big Law track. We can avoid having to answer the truly hard questions about what we actually WANT to do with the rest of our lives and are there ways, beyond the two or three well-trodden paths, that we can examine our future. These questions are infinitely more complicated than choosing the topic of a 1,000-word essay and the panic and dread that I felt trying to do this does not bode well for my ability to make the more difficult and important decisions that lie ahead. But the same thing is blocking my ability to both things, a fear of creative thinking. The expectations filled life I have led has made me very good at accomplishing tasks but has not forced me to think outside the box. Rather, it has rewarded and conditioned behavior that conforms to the prescribed path and any deviation from it is a risk that is deemed not worth taking for fear of missing out on one of the necessary merit badges. But now I have reached the end of that path and must embark on a new one. The first semester of law school, with its continued rigidity and funneling toward yet another prescribed pathway have not assisted me in finding that creativity that I have shied away from for all these years but I am hoping that this class and the next few years will help me do just that. I don’t know whether I will end up following the path or least resistance and going to a large firm for the rest of my life, but the first half of this class and the process of writing this essay has at least made me sure of one thing: If I do make that choice, I want it to be because I addressed the question head on, thought about what I really want from my future, explored all the avenues available and made an educated choice. The one thing I know for sure is that I don’t want to wake up in 15 years and realize that I am still collecting merit badges because I’m too afraid to think creatively about a different path.So, what would the next draft of such an essay be like? A better way of describing the desire not to have to chose a question? A slightly cleverer version of writing an essay about not wanting to have to choose an essay topic so you don't have to choose an essay topic? Or, perhaps, an actual decision to have a question worth writing about and to write about it, so you don't have to contemplate spending your whole life doing a job one primary recommendation of which was that you didn't have to decide what to do with your life. Over to you, Max.
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