Finding Direction: The Wind Vane Chronicles

Part 3 - DIGRESSION:  Law School Smarts, Life Experiences & the Vagaries of Each

I'm not very far into my story of my life and career in law, but want to digress a bit, already.

I left you last time with my five month whirlwind, somewhat impulsive decision to go to law school at 44, doing all that needed to be done in a rush toward achieving that goal and then actually doing it.  Today, I want to delve into more of the reasoning I used at the time and how, in retrospect, I found out that I couldn't DO what I had done, nor, possibly, would I have wanted to.

As things turned out, Tom and I were both incredibly naive about what all going to law school and practicing law really entailed.  Especially, at that age and being diabetic.  But, then, isn't life always that way.  You go through the difficult experiences and testing first, and then you learn the lessons.   

For one thing, I had not graduated from college that long ago - only three years before, at 40 - and that was a really "miraculous" God-driven experience.  In fact, so much so that I still to this day consider that accomplishment to be, by far, the proudest moment of my life.  So, to understand all that I'm going to share with you about my law career, you must read my blog post about it from November 21, 2005.  (Take the couple of minutes to read it.  I'll wait.)

After all that had happened in my college experience (and many others), I trusted God to work things out in my life for good, believing that if things were meant to happen, they would.  So, I was not really surprised when they did.

It wasn't until after I was in law school that I found out that students took expensive weeks long study courses to prepare for the LSAT, took the LSAT multiple times over many months to increase their chances of passing and/or getting scholarships, sent their scores to multiple law schools (to have a better chance of being accepted), and then had to wait for up to a year to be admitted.  Me - I took the LSAT once - in June - at the very latest time it was offered that summer, got accepted mid-August, within a week and a half after Loyola received my test score, and did well enough to get a 1/2 tuition scholarship.  I'd never even heard of the LSAT until a couple of months before I took it!

Well, as you've surmised by now, I was obviously what they call "book smart."  That, coupled with my naivety and confidence in the Lord guiding me, allowed me to accomplish a lot of things not many could do.  Thanks be to God, is all I can say.

Being book smart, plus having been through some really difficult and/or horrendous life experiences, including the stressful job I had at the time I started thinking about law school, I was a much more centered, calm student than most of them I knew.  Don't get me wrong - law school was incredibly difficult and stressful.  It certainly wasn't for the weak or faint of heart.  It was hard and it called for study and endless reading 24/7, pretty much, for three years.

The level of intelligence and quality of minds of the students constantly intrigued me.  I was in a class of about 200 to 225 and they were all superior students or else they wouldn't have made it into law school.  I was impressed - and happy to be among such a number from all over the U. S. and beyond.  Men and women of all ages and backgrounds were there and the journalist in me loved all of their stories.

I certainly felt humbled by the company I was in.  For once, I had no expectations of being the best, or even trying to be, although that had always been a goal before.  I was going to be happy just to get through school with a decent GPA and graduate.  

Another big shocker came to me after I had started school when I found out (dummy me!) that in law school, you only have one test per class a semester - at the very end.  Ninety-nine percent of those were questions requiring lengthy essay answers!  You had to study a whole semester's worth of material in each class and learn it all well enough to take one make-or-break essay written test and pass.  Without having a clue, especially the first year, first semester, about what you were doing.  It was highly stressful and intimidating and went on for the entire three years.

I finished the first semester with a 2.68 GPA, which I was not to happy with, but glad the semester was over.  I had managed to get that far without totally wiping out or giving up, and was determined to do better ahead.  Which I did.  But, I had some big surprises coming - good and bad - by the end of my second semester and summer.

To Be Continued . . .

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