How My Legal Education Has Shaped My Perception of the World: Reflections After the Completion of My Second Year

As the month is now halfway gone, I offer these thoughts in an attempt to fulfill my guest-blogging obligations and hopefully to hear how others feel their experience within legal academia has shaped their perception of the world.  To be completely honest, I have struggled to think of a topic to write about, but I believe this topic is fitting as the end of the 2010-2011 year was not that long ago, and many of us find ourselves trying to figure out exactly what impact the previous academic year has had on the way we interact with the world around us.

For me, this is a difficult topic to explain because at this moment I am only able to recognize that I am a dramatically different person.  I cannot articulate exactly how this past year has changed my perception and sense of self.  To put things in perspective, and hopefully explain better what I am referring to, I think it is easiest to move back first to high school and college.  

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Random Thoughts on Approaching Reunion

Later this week, we will drive down to Milwaukee for my thirty-fifth law school reunion. I look forward to the event for a number of reasons. Those three years of incredibly hard work could not have been survived without the friendships that truly were forged in the foreign territory of Civil Procedure, Property, Torts, and Contracts. Today all of these topics and many more – no one taught health law back then – are part of my fiber and who I am.

I am a lawyer and neither apologize nor think twice about the fact that I think like a lawyer. We hope that means a rational review of facts, marshalling those facts, and then advocating for one’s client. Would that there were more today who were lawyer-like, concerning themselves with the facts before advocating for their issue or cause.

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When in School, Be a Student

There is a lot of discussion within the legal community about how law schools can (or should) prepare students for the business of practicing law.  It is common to hear complaints about how young graduates do not understand how to run a practice, and that the law school faculty and administrators should better prepare them for the real world.  I respectfully disagree.

There are so few times in our lives when we can truly immerse ourselves in the science of our profession.  The years in law school expose us to intellectual experiences that may never be found in a private practice.  The law school faculty is best equipped to challenge the law student’s mind in the most thought-provoking and critical ways.  In law school, we learn how to write clearly, concisely, and persuasively.  Law schools offer opportunities to study and understand fundamental legal rights that serve as the foundation for most legal disputes that arise within the practice.  Learning about and discussing, in a critical and theoretical manner, constitutional rights or contract rights or procedural options instills a preliminary basis for everything we do as lawyers.

The best way to run a well-respected law practice is to demonstrate strong skills as a lawyer.  You can’t do that unless you have obtained a good education – one that offers the type of critical legal analysis and knowledge that is acquired in school.

Don’t get me wrong.  There are many pieces that need to fit together properly to run a successful law practice.  I submit that a solid legal education is the first and arguably largest piece in the cog.  A commitment to an ethical method of practice with a high level of integrity will naturally lead to the acquisition of the other pieces necessary to operate the machine we call a law practice.

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