Most law school professors are conflicted about their own experiences as law students.  We remember law school as an exceedingly unpleasant place, filled with crushing amounts of work and a hostile professoriate.  It is not surprising that law school is often depicted as a de-humanizing experience in the media, whether in books like Scott Turow’s One L or in movies such as The Paper Chase.  This recent post, by Professor Mazzie, seems to reflect a pervasive concern that the demands of law school can even erode our own sense of identity, a process that ultimately transforms students into soul-less apparatchiks of the legal system.  I, myself, have felt this way at times.

Some law professors (and I do not intend to include my colleagues in this group) respond to these conflicted feelings by endeavoring to reduce the stress of law school.  They reject the Socratic method as unnecessarily antagonistic and outdated.  They reduce the workload, and their expectations of the students, in order to leave more room in the students’ lives for the “real world.”  They may even take a rather forgiving view of the grading process.  Their intention is to make the current generation of law students happier during their law school experience than these professors remember being during their own.

The odd thing is that, when law students are provided with this de-stressed version of law school, I have found them to be even less satisfied with their law school experience.  Law students come to law school expecting to be challenged.  They want to have their abilities tested, and even found wanting on occasion.  In some sense, when students find the law school experience to be too easy, the law school experience loses meaning for them.

I believe that it useful for both law professors and law students to view law school as the sort of “hero’s journey” described by the great professor of comparative mythology Joseph Campbell.  For Campbell, all myth serves an important role as a pathway to the understanding of the self.  In particular, mythology serves to help each individual understand their place in the world and in society.  The extended adolescence of modern life (children living with their parents until age 18 or older) makes it essential that the broader society provide rituals or ceremonies that mark the end of dependency and the beginning of the adult society’s acceptance of the adolescent as a fully participating member.  Without such clear markers on the path of self-development, modern man can experience feelings of alienation and self-doubt that were unknown in more primitive cultures.       

In his book The Hero With a Thousand Faces, Campbell describes the archetypical “hero’s journey” that he saw reflected again and again in world mythology as a metaphor for self-enlightenment.  First, an Everyman (or Everywoman) is called to leave their ordinary life and embark on a great adventure.  Then, the hero must journey into a dark world where he must endure various trials and tribulations.  Along the journey, the hero will encounter a teacher who will give instruction in the new skills that the hero needs in order to succeed.  At this point, the hero comes to fully understand, for the first time, the ultimate goal of his quest.  Armed with new skills and knowledge, the hero continues on the journey, facing challenges that push the hero’s endurance to the limit.  Finally, the hero reaches the ultimate goal, and finds that he has been changed by the journey.  The hero now returns to the everyday world, bringing back what he has learned in order to benefit the broader society.

Some critics objected that Campbell’s archetypical journey was so generic as to be meaningless.  The discovery of Joseph Campbell by George Lucas, who wrote Star Wars in a conscious attempt to apply Campbell’s theories, and by other filmmakers, has rendered the “hero’s journey” so familiar to moviegoers that it has become ubiquitous and therefore less powerful.  Nonetheless, there is something in Campbell’s theories that resonates.

We all see ourselves as the hero in our life’s journey.  We want to overcome obstacles.  We seek to acquire new skills and knowledge that will allow us to achieve our goals.  Above all, we desire some sort of tangible sign that we have been accepted by “adult” society.  For some (not all) students, a rigorous law school experience provides a path to accomplish these objectives.  Just don’t call me “Yoda.”

To those who worry that the stress and crushing workload of a traditional legal education can make students unhappy, I would quote the words of Joseph Campbell.  When his students asked, “what is the secret of happiness?,” Campbell replied, “follow your bliss.”  Happiness does not come from the ease with which you navigate through life.  Happiness comes from doing that which makes you happy.  The practice of law can be very difficult, but if you accept the stress and long hours as the cost of spending your career pursuing justice and stimulating your intellect, you will be very happy indeed.