Law School: Humiliation, Redemption and Something More

I arrived at law school just as I had left Oklahoma City 72 hours earlier: exhausted, exhilarated and eager.

I had no idea what I was in for.

 As I walked into the school on the first day, a man in a none-too-fresh, white three-piece suit, who looked like a mash-up of Boss Hogg and Benjamin Franklin, came barreling down the stairs, arms outstretched, hair flying, yelling, "Good! Evil! Good! Evil!"

WTF have I gotten myself into?

I learned some weeks later that Professor X had been calling to his aptly-named cats, one black, the other white, who had escaped his office. (1) 

I digress.

Law school classes are mostly taught via the Socratic method. The professor does not lecture, but draws out the content by questioning the students who have, presumably, read the textbook. In law school, the textbooks contain primarily decisions of courts interpreting either law enacted by a legislative body or common law set forth by other court decisions, sometimes both. Some textbooks contain other sorts of material such as the Constitution, codified rules of civil or criminal procedure or uniform codes. What they do not contain is explanatory material.

The first thing you learn as a first year law student is how to "brief a case," that is, how to glean the pertinent points from a court's decision so that, if called upon in class, you can accurately recite the information. Oh, and also so you can learn the law. Usually this includes summarizing the facts, identifying the question before the court, describing the court's analysis and stating the precise holding or ruling of the court. Often, the cases excerpted in the textbooks are filled with irrelevant information and the precise "holding" is buried. No spoon-feeding here; you have to work for it.  There are study guides and "canned briefs" available for purchase. We were sternly cautioned against them because the drudges employed to create them may not have even passed the bar! They might not even be lawyers! Trust them at your peril!

The second thing you learn as a first year law student is not to come to class unprepared. Law professors are often quite cruel and some seem to delight in humiliating students who are unprepared or simply don't grasp the key points of the cases. (2) These professors are generally known to the students - unless they are new to the school. Previously benign professors might turn vicious if, for example, they are quitting smoking or going through a divorce. (3)  In addition, law students are a hyper-competitive, brutal crowd, particularly in the first first year. Being exposed as unprepared or simply clueless before 100 or so of your classmates, even by a gentle professor, is a humbling experience. Best to be prepared.

But being prepared takes time. A lot of time. Time spent in quiet study. An average caseload in law school might be 15 credit hours per semester: 5 3-credit-hour classes. Each class could have more than 30 pages of reading per night. Except it's not only reading, it's reading plus briefing.

And some of us had social lives.

By about 2/3 of the way through my first semester, I was getting a little sloppy. I had an 8 a.m. contracts class that was killing me. I am not a morning person and the aged, misogynistic professor was a rabid basketball fan. So much so that class discussions often veered far afield and having no idea who the players, coaches and teams were, I grew deeply resentful. I really needed more discussion and explanation than I was getting, so I spent a lot of time reading and re-reading the cases trying to make sense of it.

My afternoon criminal law class was challenging enough without my professor bleeding me dry, bumming cigarettes from me every day. I was reduced to scrounging beneath the floor mats in my car for change to buy smokes and Professor "I wrote the Ohio Criminal Code and live in a mansion" was trying to quit. Rather than just buy a pack and admit that he was failing, he mooched from me.  I was in no position to say "no."  It also made me an easy target in class because in the sea of faces, he readily recognized mine. And so with a smile, called upon me. Almost daily.

I  had a year-long legal writing course and another mumbo-jumbo legal-ese class I never did get the point of. The professor was rumored to be brilliant, but I was not convinced. Most of our term was spent discussing the Judgment of Solomon. An actual exchange:

(Looks down at his seating chart.)

"Mr. Danish?"

"Mr. Danish?"

"No Mr. Danish?"

(Looks down at his seating chart.)

"Mr. Cook?"

"Here."

"Well, if we haven't got a Danish, at least we have a Cook."

Nearly laughed himself silly at that one, he did.

The other class I took my first semester was torts. I actually enjoyed it. It was in the late morning, so I was awake and fully caffeinated. The professor was a young woman. I think this was her first teaching assignment. She was very formal and organized. We had had several good exchanges up to that point in the term.

On this particular Wednesday, I was exhausted. Up late the night before, overloaded with a paper due in legal writing and copious contracts reading, I didn't finish my torts. I figured I was safe from being called on since I raised my hand regularly, so she had no reason to think I wouldn't be prepared. I could, of course, approach her before class and tell her I wasn't prepared, but she only allowed one pass per semester and I might need it later. I'd gamble.

Damn if she didn't fly through the material I had already covered and into the unread. Damn if she didn't look down at that seating chart and then look directly at me.

"Ms. Pauken, Mr. Jones just told us the court's ruling in X vs. Y; did they get it right?"

Crap, crap, crappity crap.

Her rule was that if you were unprepared, you were to let her know before class.

50-50 shot. Yes or no question.

I come from a poker-playing family. I know how to bluff.  What the hell?

Firmly and with conviction, I said,

"No. They did not."

I hadn't even exhaled when 47 eager gunner-hands shot into the air.

Aw, shit.

She looked at me, eyebrows raised in disbelief, then down at the seating chart.

"Mr. Collins, why don't you explain to Ms. Pauken why she is wrong?"

 I glanced at Matt, who sat next to me. He was grinning and shaking his head.

"You are so fucked," he whispered.

I spent most of the next day preparing for Friday's torts class. It would be a doozy. Among the cases was a legendary lawsuit arising out of freighters that collided with a drawbridge in a canal; the St. Lawrence Seaway, as I recall. There were a series of mistakes: delayed signaling by the captain, a drawbridge watchman asleep at his post, maybe a mechanical failure of some sort.  I diagrammed the sequence of events because it was so complicated.

On Friday at 11:00, slightly queasy, I took my seat and prepared to perform.

The professor walked in at the last minute and took her time opening her binder and setting out her seating chart as the anticipation grew. Everyone knew what was coming.

She looked up at me.

"Ms. Pauken, are you prepared today?"

An expectant hum filled the room as my classmates craned around to see the look on my face.

I grinned and nodded.

"I sure am, Professor M."

"Proceed with the first case."

It was the Meg Pauken Show.

Fifty minutes worth.

She asked; I answered. And answered and answered and answered.

When the bell finally rang, I was completely drained. I let out my breath in a big sigh.

Matt gave me a nod and a smile.

"Nice."

I turned to him.

"Is it too early to drink? Do you think the Barking Spider is open?"

"What the hell? It's Friday. Let's go."

(1) Later, I also discovered that he was a regular renter of pornographic movies from the local video store, Vid-Star. I'd see him on many a Friday night emerging from the curtained back room with a stack of tapes and a big bag of popcorn.

(2) See The Paper Chase, a 1970's era series on PBS or One L, Scott Turow.

(3) Personal experience.

My Life in Sandwiches

We were a Miracle Whip-Town House home. We never, ever, veered toward Ritz or Hellmans, even when there was a sale on them at Kinney's Market. Even with a coupon. Miracle Whip flavored nearly every sandwich I ate growing up and I ate a lot of them.

Lunch always centered on the sandwich. I brown-bagged it every single day until high school, when occasionally we escaped from the gloom of our church basement lunchroom to the bright lights of Burger King. There were kids who went home for lunch, but I lived too far away. Instead, I'd unpack my folded-over baggies and see what the day held. There was always a fruit tucked in there. If I could talk Mom into it, there might be a Hunt's snack pack pudding. If there happened to be cookies in the house, there would be 2; only 2. No chips. I'd pull out the sandwich last. Would it be tuna salad? Peanut butter and mystery jam? Did she give me Jenny's peanut butter and mustard (gag) by mistake? No pickle loaf for us. Sometimes it might be baloney; sometimes egg salad. Ham salad made at home with the manual grinder that attached to the countertop? Braunschweiger? Mmmmm. Braunschweiger and Miracle Whip on white bread! A personal favorite of mine.

What is Braunschweiger, you ask? (Note: please pronounce it as I do, in the same German accent used by the  Gestapo-loving Austrian officials in The Sound of Music: "Braun-ShVIE-Gah"; it tastes better that way.) Braunschweiger is a soft liver sausage, with a dense and earthy taste. It is usually sold in chunks, in yellow casing, approximately the diameter of a soda can. I don't think I have eaten it since I graduated from high school. Out of curiosity, I looked for it at the grocery store last week, just to see if it was still available and it was! Not that I'd care to ingest any nowadays; now that I know what it is made of and what it would do to my cholesterol level.

None of my friends brought Braunschweiger; in fact, they thought it was pretty gross. They got things like ham sandwiches and Little Debbie's and bags of chips or Fritos. Usually both. Not us; not in my family. We weren't allowed much in the way of what was then known as "junk."

I ponder these things as I pack lunches for my girls. Although their schools offer hot lunch (mine didn't; too small), they prefer to pack. It's harder now to pack lunches, now that we know about trans-fats and preservatives and Red Dye #40. We have to pull out our Venn Diagrams to find the overlap among competing factors: Locally grown? Non-GMO? Nothing artificial? Healthy? No high fructose corn syrup? Whole grain? Low sugar? Oh, yeah, will they actually eat it?

And the bar keeps rising. We can't just pack it in throwaway plastic bags; it has to be sustainable: reusable containers and cloth napkins! Oh, and it should be visually appealing - like the bento-box lunches on Pinterest with the hard boiled eggs molded into the shape of a fish or a heart. Because, you know, that's all I do all day. Plan for tomorrow's school lunches. Honestly. 

These poor kids only have about 15 minutes to eat. I should just throw it all in a blender and send it in a thermos with a straw! Stainless steel, of course. With a cooler pack. Always a cooler pack. The school actually sent home guidelines for healthy lunches and REQUIRES cooler packs. My Braunschweiger sandwiches survived half a day in a locker in nothing more than a baggie, so why are cooler packs so important nowadays? Maybe it's because we don't use as much Miracle Whip.

Bainbridge Abbey

I never thought that in helping to care for my parents, I'd be managing a staff of dozens. Since I am, does this mean that I can wear the fabulous clothes of Countess Cora Crawley of Downton Abbey as I supervise the housekeepers, caretakers, groundskeeper, nurses and cook? It seems only fitting that I should.

When Mom (Dowager Countess) and Dad (Earl of Bainbridge) moved into their apartment at Bainbridge Abbey in February, there were certain repairs that had to be made: a malfunctioning shower head, broken refrigerator door handle, etc. There has been an intermittently balky clothes dryer (it seems that birds nest in the vent), the installation of grab-bars and temperamental wi-fi service to be dealt with. It seems that every other week there is another little item that needs repair and follow up. Paul, the groundskeeper, and I are on a first-name basis, but I am thinking this should be in Carson's realm. I'll have to speak with him about that.This week, it's the dryer again. Damn those birds! I'll have to suggest a hunt.

The rent (hefty) for the apartment is supposed to include daily bed-making, rubbish removal and weekly cleaning. So far, rubbish removal has gone very smoothly.   The art of proper bed-making has eluded the young staff members who cheerfully arrive some days of the week to perform this duty. They would most certainly benefit from some instruction by Aunts Peace and Plenty. The Earl has taken to coaching them when he feels up to it, because he is an egalitarian sort. I have demonstrated hospital corners on occasion, but really, shouldn't Mrs. Hughes be handling the day-to-day instruction of the staff?

The cleaning has been sporadic at best, so I have had to go to Mrs. Hughes' stand-in and have a few chats about both quality and quantity. Fortunately, the Dowager Countess keeps a sharp lookout and informs me when things are not up to snuff. The Earl is far too permissive to be relied upon for an accurate report of such things. He has a soft heart where the staff is concerned.

The nursing staff is mostly a dedicated set and my supervision of them involves the monitoring of symptoms and frequent adjustments in medication on behalf of the Earl and Dowager Countess. Near daily (and often more) communication is typical, so we have established a collegial relationship. Fortunately there are nurses in the family (Sybil Crawley?) to provide the necessary expertise which I lack.

Unfortunately, there has been a recent staff change in the kitchen of the Abbey. It seems that the previous cook, who produced palatable, if unexciting, meals has been succeeded by a less talented chef. Much less talented. So much so that I have had a request from the Earl to purchase a few Stouffers frozen entrees. Can you imagine? The Earl dining on frozen entrees? Unthinkable. Once again, I have had to step in where Mrs. Hughes should have been attentively handling the issue. I can only hope it improves.

There have been automotive issues requiring attention, as well. The Earl's vehicle lease concluded while he was (and remains) unable to drive, necessitating the inspection and turn-in of his Lincoln. Alas, Branson was nowhere to be found, so I had to attend to this myself. I must speak to Carson, once again!

The most troubling area of oversight has been with the caretakers. We began to utilize round the clock caretakers for the Dowager Countess when the Earl was hospitalized in early February. Once he was released from the hospital after having broken his leg, he spent three weeks in the Rehabilitation Wing of the Abbey before returning their apartment. A mere five days later, he was readmitted to the hospital with a severe case of  pneumonia. Another week's stay in the hospital was followed by ten days in the Rehabilitation Wing. The Earl has not regained his strength, so we have continued with the caretakers, around the clock.

The caretakers are to assist with meals (serving only, no preparation) and "personal care"; keep the apartment tidy (no heavy cleaning); do laundry and dishes; attend to the needs of the Dowager Countess and the Earl, and communicate any concerns or needs to me. By and large, they have been lovely women who care for the Dowager Countess and the Earl with compassion and kindness, but there have been a few exceptions.

The first troublesome caretaker was the Drinker. Every staff has one, I suppose, (Thomas Barrow?) but it simply is not acceptable to have several glasses of wine while you are caring for an elderly woman with dementia and poor balance. Completely unacceptable! Moreover, the Dowager Countess was not fond of her ("She never shuts up!"). She had to go.

Soon after, she was replaced by the Emotional Basket Case. Overbearing in every possible way, she in turns browbeat me (The Countess!) about potentially dangerous conditions such as mold in the garbage disposal (horrors!), lint in the dryer vent (shocking!) and a wobbly table leg. I actually resorted to upending the dining room table, removing and reattaching each leg in turn just to silence her. She berated Lady Sybil about calling more often and burst into tears frequently and without warning. The Dowager Countess was not positively disposed toward her, either. She had to go.

Most recently I have had to terminate the services of the Lump. She schlumped into the apartment in a cloud of stale cigarette smoke (the Earl has lung cancer!), dropped her coat and bag onto any nearby chair (has she not heard of closets?) and immediately sank into the sofa and watched television. She was utterly devoid of initiative or energy and performed no task unrequested. I arrived one afternoon to see the Dowager Countess emerging from bathroom, unclothed, having both showered and cleaned the entire bathroom whilst the Lump remained immersed in TV watching. The Lump did not even notice the arrival of  "guests" despite my loud knock at the door before entering. The Dowager Countess found her tiresome ("All she does is sit there and watch TV!"). Without question, she had to go. Hopefully her replacement will be better suited to the position.

Managing an estate like Bainbridge Abbey would not be possible without sufficient staff and good people are so hard to find. Handling the financial affairs of the estate is one responsibility I simply cannot delegate to staff, no matter how trustworthy and loyal. Merely describing the goings-on of the Abbey makes me tired! I hope O'Brien has drawn a bath for me. I simply must have a good soak.