Law School

Candor is not my typical strong suit. I'm generally tight-lipped about personal stuff, but for the sake of my sanity, I am attempting it. I have never truly discussed what my year of law school was like or how it affected me. I can now safely say while looking back on that year of hell that it was the absolute worst year of my life yet it was also one of the most thrilling years of my life. It is hard to wrap my brain around these paradoxical feelings and figure out how to sort through them in order to completely move on with my life. I have been in almost a holding pattern while moving about my daily life since that day I learned my fate. It robbed me of my self-esteem, and in doing so I let it rob me of life; though, I am just beginning to see how much I have missed.

To back up for those unaware of my year of hell, let me explain. First and foremost, I am not trying to insult any of the incredible people I met while attending California Western School of Law. I am not knocking the school on the whole since I have fond memories of (most) of the professors and of the courses I took. Indeed, you are among the best things to come out of there for me. I still adore you all. In particular, meeting Rachel has changed my life. She is my best friend! I trust her with my dogs, my child, and my life! ;)

So where to begin… While staying home with my son almost three years going stir crazy, I realized I liked working and school! How strange! I am not the stay at home mom sort, and I admire anyone who can do it while maintaining her sanity. I searched my brain, soul, whatever, trying to decide what to do. I knew returning to teaching wasn't the answer. Something led me to law for likely all the wrong reasons; yet it oddly worked for me. Going against my non-adventurous personality, I dove head first. I picked up LSAT books, took God knows how many practice tests, signed up on the LSDAS site, picked a LSAT test date, the works, without ever having looked into law school in my life. Two months later, I took the LSAT and earned a perfectly average score. I was satisfied. I applied to all three law schools in the San Diego area. I was rejected by USD as I expected. I was accepted by Thomas Jefferson and California Western. I chose wrong!

Three weeks into my law school experience already struggling with being a mom and maintaining the vigorous full-time schedule and depth of reading, my son's daycare provider took him to Mission Bay to play with two other children. He wandered off crossing Mission Bay Drive, a five lane highway, so he could check out Belmont Park. He was two weeks shy of his third birthday. He was unharmed, but it was not exactly a great start for me. The next three weeks, I muddled through while searching for a new place for my child to attend and grew further behind. But I found the subject matter to be the most intellectually stimulating thing I had ever done with my life. I was conversely stressed out beyond anything I had ever experienced while equally mentally invigorated. It was an overwhelming feeling.

I felt I was playing catch-up the entire semester but dove into finals. With the infamous "law school curve," I came out with a low C-average a 73.5/72.75 (with legal writing/without legal writing). Seriously, Campbell's criminal law exam killed me!! Again, I was okay with being average. I never expected Law Review. I was aware of Cal Western's first year grade policy, and I did give it some thought. However, I never could have predicted what second semester would have in store for me.

Two weeks into my second semester, on my birthday no less, I learned my grandmother was dying. I went home to say goodbye. So once again, I began the semester by getting behind. The same evening I learned my grandmother was terminally ill, my husband informed me he didn't know if he wanted to be married any more. I didn't realize it then, but he was spirally towards a mental breakdown that wouldn't hit rock bottom until my finals week. So I was a shambles. I was mourning the impending loss of my grandmother while pushing maddeningly forward with school out of fear I might be a single mother in the distance future and needed a way to support myself. Needless to say, second semester was terrible for me. In March, I learned my husband was unexpectedly going to sea on two weeks notice (for five weeks) leaving me at home completely alone during finals with a three-year old and two dogs. That was the breaking point for me. I almost lost it. I dropped a class to lighten the load. In hindsight, I should have dropped two or more, but I received truly bad advice from a Dean, who up until the last time I spoke to her, denied she ever spoke to me or gave me such advice. I ended my second semester with a 73.8/73. I raised my GPA despite great odds.

Herein lies the problem. CW, in some absurd attempt to raise its rate of students who pass the Bar on the first try, found a thin correlation between grades and passing the Bar. This correlation shows that students with lots of grades below a 74 tend not to pass the first time. It in no way shows an inability to practice law. Anyone in law school has heard the saying "A-students become judges … C-students become trial lawyers." CW had in place a rule that any student ending his/her first year with below a 74 would be academically dismissed. As such, I was dismissed and to this date have no credit for the work I completed. Had I attended either other school in SD, I would have been allowed to continue in my studies.

The irony in all this is that law is a living document changing as times change which considers the particular circumstances surrounding an incident before offering a ruling. In a subject area which offers countless elements in order to prove crimes or torts as well as defenses and affirmative defenses, you'd think a school would be willing to allow a student one affirmative defense stating, "Yes, it is true I didn't meet the cut-off, but here is why…" Apparently "substantial justice and fair play" doesn't apply in the very place teaching the concept. CW allows absolutely no exceptions to this already unfair rule. It never took into account what I accomplished despite numerous obstacles. It is patently unfair that a person can do the work, pass the courses, and then be denied the opportunity to stay. In another ironic twist, I also knew I never intended to take the CA Bar so I never would have disturbed the school's precious bar rate. I knew I'd be moving very soon after graduating.

I left law school completely devastated, feeling completely broken and unsure of my intelligence for the first time in my life, and with absolutely no back-up plan of what to do with my life. I jumped into a paralegal program which I aced proving that I did indeed learn something in law school. However, that didn't fix the problem. I still felt like a failure. To some extent I still do. I want so very much to go back yet I am terrified. I have no self-confidence. I have spent the last five years beating myself up for doing my very best under extraordinary stress. It makes it doubly hard to forget when I pay the student loan bills for that year every single month as well. I can't get past it! Deep down I know I actually did not fail but that is little consolation. I was denied the chance to do something I desperately wanted and still want to do. It is a very lonely, empty place to want to do something with all your heart and be told "No, you passed, but you are not good enough for us." And that it exactly where I still sit today. The bigger issue is how to finally be released from that lonely place. Perhaps, writing this is a start…