I wrote this back in 2006, near the end of my first semester in law school. I actually submitted it as a final paper for my Legal Method course, and am still amazed my professor didn't flunk me. It's pretty long (I thought it had to be, given that it was supposed to be a *ahem* final paper), but I hope you like it anyway.
Legally (Blonde) Bland:
A Satirical Look at Law School
(And How They Were Broken in a Span of Four Months)
.oOo.
“I think she just woke up one morning and said ‘I think I’ll go to law school today.’”
-Professor Callahan, Legally Blonde
.oOo.
I cannot remember exactly when I reached the “fantastically life-altering” decision to apply for admission into law school. I wasn’t one of those people who knew from early on that they wanted to become lawyers. (At one point I had actually thought I was meant to become a chemist. That was, however, until I had chemistry in third year high school, upon which I realized that chemistry hated me as much as I hated it.) It was, in fact, only three months into law school that I knew for sure (“sure” here being a relative term) I wanted to become one. A lawyer, I mean.
Unbelievably cheesy as it may sound, I had always wanted to get into something that would allow me to help people. Throughout high school and college I had tried to think of ways wherein ‘helping people’ could be integrated into my ever-lengthening list of possible professions, and it was around the second or third year of my undergraduate studies when it finally hit me: why not just enter a profession where helping people was (supposed to be) the main agenda? Medicine was the first thing that entered my mind, of course. After the whole chemistry fiasco, however, the idea left almost as quickly as it came. Law was a very close second. The longer I thought about it, the more I thought, “well, why not?” I enjoy writing. I enjoy reading, and most of all, I enjoy talking (in private, at least. Public speaking is not my cup of tea, which may sound strange, since my undergraduate degree is Broadcast Communication.) And really, how bad could it be? Everyone knows that free-flowing academic discussions are the lifeblood of law school. After all, it’s always been that way in the movies.
Ah, pop culture. How well I know thee.
Stereotyping
When Elle Woods (played by Reese Witherspoon) told her parents about her decision to go to Harvard and study law in the movie Legally Blonde, her father said: “Oh sweetheart, you don’t have to go to law school. Law school is for people who are boring and ugly and serious. And you, button, are none of those things.”
It is common knowledge that stereotypes are not based on well-founded thought. Derived from simplification, exaggeration or distortion, generalization and culture, stereotyping abounds in society, and nothing is safe from it – not even law school, where some of the (*ahem*) greatest minds are said to converge. Walter Lippman, an American journalist, coined the term “stereotype” as a metaphor from the exact same word, invented by Firmin Didot, which was meant to depict a duplicate impression of an original typographical element used in printing. Lippman called stereotype a “picture in our heads,” saying “Whether right or wrong …imagination is shaped by the pictures seen. …Consequently, they lead to stereotypes that are hard to shake.”[1]
Nobody can deny that they entered law school thinking they knew almost exactly what to expect – a coping mechanism, designed to encourage and soothe nervous jitters. All entered the hallowed halls trying to convey the best aspects of their personalities, and were still, somehow, classified into groups, categorized and labelled safely in their own minds. The need to feel safe, to feel as though the situation was totally under control – these are perhaps reasons why stereotyping has almost become an instinct. Storytellers throughout history used stereotypical characters, in hopes of quickly connecting the audience with new situations. People nowadays, I suppose, are not much different.
Law ‘Schools of Thought’
From what I gather, stereotyping for freshman law students could be classified into the following ‘schools of thought’:
v the Hearsay school of thought;
v the Big Screen theory, and;
v the High School theory.
The Hearsay school of thought revolves around a particularly ambivalent concept – gossip. Stories (mostly horror) from friends and family who have been through it, or perhaps, God forbid, dropped out of it, abound. This usually has the tendency to form a general idea of law school in one’s mind, which may either serve to encourage the future law student, or deter her. This school of thought, of course, may be entirely dependent on the experiences of the storyteller. If her experiences are decidedly horrible, then it is likely that her listener would feel rather daunted by the idea of law school. A person, meanwhile, who says nothing but good things about law school, may have a tendency to thoroughly convince her listener to go through all four years of it. (This person, however, may prove quite difficult to find.)
All in all, it would undoubtedly be dangerous to take just one person’s word for it. As any gossip-monger would know, if one cannot avoid gossip (or really, simply doesn’t want to), it is always better to have more than one source. Everyone, after all, may have different story to tell, and that difference may tend to add balance to the scales – no matter how slight the difference may be.
On the other hand, in the Big Screen theory law school is shaped by what one sees in the movies or on television. Books may sometimes contribute to the image generated as well. While Legally Blonde may be the only movie dealing directly with law school, other movies occasionally have law school references that add to the ever-sharpening picture in the future student’s brain. Television shows that present the practice of law (or, at times, university life), such as The Practice, The Firm and Boston Legal, as well as books with characters in the profession, like Sophie Kinsella’s Undomestic Goddess – they all have a tendency to affect one’s perception of the people and situations in the study of law.
Media filling in the blanks pertaining to law school is quite common for those who have no lawyers in the family, or friends who look at them strangely when they mention an extra four years of studying. It may be said that anybody who wishes to join the ranks of those in the study of law must know that movies, television and books are not the most accurate sources of information, they simply must. However, when there is no other reliable source to turn to, why not at least consider what you have? It may not be entirely reliable, but they must be based on something, don’t you think?
The High School theory is perhaps the most “reliable” (one must keep in mind that we are discussing stereotypes) school of thought. This is usually presented by upperclassmen during the first few days of school in their description of law school life. This is primarily based on the fact that students are grouped into blocks and are usually assigned just one room for the entire semester. Due to their being “stuck” with the same people for the duration of law school, relationships between the students within the block tend to become similar to those of high school students’, who are usually particularly close, having known each other for quite some time.
These three so-called schools of thought are often interconnected, each one bearing the capability to influence the others. For example, one might view things as generally High School, but what is lacking in this theory may be supplemented by the Big Screen or Hearsay.
Personal experience renders me partial to the High School theory, supplemented by that of the Big Screen. Having neither friends nor relatives who had gone through law school, the ‘knowledge’ I gathered throughout my high school and college years pertaining to the Hearsay school of thought is minimal, and quite negligible. In fact, aside from my social studies teachers often mentioning their dreams of getting into law school, the only story I can recall pertaining to it is the one where one of my close friends told me that her sister, who was a law student, barely left her room, as she was always studying. It was driven home by the fact that in the four years she was in law school, I had only seen her once.
Falling Prey
Entering the law school I attended for the first time as a law student, all I had behind me was the image of law school formed by movies, television shows and books. Very Big Screen, but at the time I wasn’t particularly afraid – after four years in what people lovingly (and yet exasperatedly) described as a place where long lines and painful waits were the norm, registration was my specialty. I was prepared to run around all day, struggling to get this requirement, sign up for that class, smile painfully after finding out they no longer had a slot for the schedule I wanted and come back the next day to do everything all over again. I was ready.
I was, therefore, surprised when a lady opened the door of the Office of the College Secretary and explained the procedure, which consisted of signing up for all your classes at once. In one go. I was even more surprised when she took out a can, shook it, and made us draw lots to determine our blocks. Our blocks. For the entire four years of our stay in law school (should we survive). I was positively thrown – I was used to being part of a system that defined blocks as a group of people who took the same undergraduate course, but were not necessarily stuck together every minute of the school day. You were quite close when you all saw each other twice a week. After twelve years in an all-girls Catholic school where people were practically fading into each other, and four years in a university where the motto was basically “live and let live,” I didn’t know where to place myself.
I never particularly subscribed to the opinion that law school was for “boring and ugly and serious people.” Not in its entirety, at least. I believed the part about being serious, wasn’t sure about the boring, and didn’t want to think about the ugly. I knew the people were supposed to be smart, and I was expecting them to be quite competitive; the relatively quiet intellectual types who stuck to their own groups. In the registration line with a good friend from undergrad, we stood there making jokes, talking about everything from summer vacation to where we would be in four years, and generally being quite ditzy. I believe that it was only after the lady from the secretary’s office broke the news about being grouped into blocks that everyone began to really pay attention to the people outside their little groups who were in the line with them. I recalled my ‘relatively quiet intellectuals’, looked around – and suddenly felt like such a blond.
I cannot recall how exactly I grouped everybody – all I remember is the feeling of complete agreement when my friend leaned over and muttered, “Shit, I feel like a total blond!” – but once sorted into blocks, the categories began to somehow vary. Instead of groups fitting the description, individual one-dimensional stereotypes came to the fore, particularly during the first few days of school, when people were required to introduce themselves. By then upperclassmen had already been known to say “don’t worry, it’s just like high school,” but for someone who spent all her high school years in an all-girls school singing and setting up prom and play locations, the sheer number of boys in class quickly offset that statement. And so, following the tradition of (usually American) high school seen in the movies, more detailed stereotyping flourished.
In my experience people in real high schools are generally nicer than those depicted in books, television and the movies, so the stereotypical bully was ruled out. I’d never experienced being bullied, anyway (of course, that could’ve been because I was taller than most girls, and they all knew I could give as good as I got), and after all, we were taking graduate studies. We should be more mature than that, shouldn’t we?
After having been required to repeatedly introduce ourselves, however, some of the other stereotypes seemed to fit. There was the quintessential law student, the guy who actually owned a set of earplugs – which he wore during breaks so he could read law books undisturbed. There was the debater, the achiever, the public speaker, the class valedictorian, the total intellectual… and, truly following the (usually) ‘American’ high school tradition, the rebel-goth, the antisocial writer, the cool girl, the jock, the lovable gay guy who seemed straight out of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, the pretty-boy and the cheerleader bitch. There was the petite nice girl in the corner, who could mentally digest cases after one reading and quote from them verbatim after two. There was the cute guy across the aisle who barely spoke, and his friend who seemed to be just as quiet. There was the guy in glasses who wrote down ‘watching pretty girls’ under his list of hobbies – ah, the class clown. And me?
“The shy girl in the noisy group,” according to one of my closest friends in class, the “cheerleader bitch.”
Reality Check
As Elle Woods said, “Uh. I’m sorry. I just hallucinated.”
Of course, you all knew I was wrong. I knew I was wrong. I can’t presume to speak for the rest of the class, but I believe we all knew that no matter how similar our assessments of each other’s characters could be to ‘real life,’ they were never quite enough, and they were never quite right. The stereotypes had served their purpose – they comforted us, made us feel as though we had a good enough grasp on reality to be able to properly deal with it. To connect us, the audience, with the situation.
Reality, while seemingly adhering to these stereotypes, may tend to surprise and (doubtlessly) amuse you. Images from the big screen of deep, cinematographically presented academic discussions between peers morphs into an argument about the broken-down air conditioner in harsh light (and searing heat). The group of law students entering the building, their hair blowing in the wind, feeling awed by the magnificence of their situation, is reduced to a bunch of law students, back from lunch at McDonald’s, singing ‘Finally Found Someone’ by Barbara Streisand in falsetto.
The quintessential law student, apart from often arriving late, has a tendency to make the most unexpected wisecracks that leave you laughing. The debater turns out to be one of the more affectionate guys in class and the achiever turns out to be gay with a penchant for matchmaking. The total intellectual, aside from his intimacy issues, rolls his eyes like the best cheerleader and can make the cattiest remarks. The rebel-goth makes jaws drop in admiration when he speaks, and has the funniest girlfriend. The antisocial writer can be quite sweet, and the jock is one of the biggest perfectionists. The petite nice girl in the corner, along with the cool girl, can drink half the class under the table, and the cute quiet guy across the aisle can (very convincingly) play a girl. (Yes, yes, he was forced to do it.) His friend, who is also supposed to be rather quiet, cracks the corniest jokes that never fail to make the class laugh – but this, of course, does not stop them from telling him just how corny he is. The class clown spends hours in the library studying (this is not a guarantee, however, that he will not pick on you), and the pretty-boy is coolly self-deprecating. The cheerleader bitch can talk like a hip-hop rapper and has a heart of gold, while the lovable gay guy was once the sweetest suitor a girl could have. And finally, if they haven’t noticed, the shy girl in the noisy group has a transformation reminiscent of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde once sitting courtside in a basketball game.
In The End (of the First Sem, at least)
After four months of law school, here I am. A little shaky after my first brush with final exams, but still standing. From lawyer-jokes before law school (okay, okay, lawyers are the spawn of Satan, I get it) to law school jokes during the first few days to law school jokes in the end (“Oh look, you can get married without legal consent!” – Oh, haha. You make the joke, you laugh, and properly shudder when you realize what you just said), before you know it the stereotypes fade. This is, of course, ideal.
I am not advocating the use of stereotypes. Far from it. At its worst, stereotyping is the very root of prejudice, the root of racism and bigotry. In law, cases are lost and lives may be ruined because of biases born of stereotyping. One cannot deny, however, that sometimes, sometimes it helps us deal with situations, at least until we are standing on our own two feet. Stereotyping can’t do much harm as long as we remember it for what it is: a coping mechanism.
Who knows, maybe what see in the movies and on television will give us an idea of the kind of lawyers we would like to become. Perhaps one would like to end up like Alan Shore
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