The Great Change: Turning Cathy into a Lawyer

Lately I've been surfing around to other law students' blogs. There's a lot out there. Some are virtual ghost towns, set-up and posted to in earnest for a week or month but now long forgotten. Some are vain and trite. But there are several out there that have plenty of thoughtful, articulate posts. I like Jeremy's blog, for instance, which seems to be regarded as one of the pre-eminent law student blogs around. He's extremely prolific, insightful, and funny. I also stumbled upon Sua Sponte, who has interesting things to say as well. She transferred law schools, which gives the documentation of her Great Change a character that most law students' blogs wouldn't have.

But I really want to talk about this post by Jewish Buddha. Apparently he had the choice to attend BU, but ultimately opted for George Washington University law school in D.C. In this post he talks about how he thought about each option, and on what basis he made his eventual decision. What stood out for me was what he said about BU, about the positive "vibe" he picked up on when he visited. Even though he ultimately chose the vibe-less GW, he appreciated what BU tried to offer him. When he described it I knew exactly what he meant.

I realize that in writing about my Great Change I never really talked about the admissions process, and maybe I should. I'll start at the very beginning. In April 2000 things were going nicely in my life: I had a good career, I had a long-term relationship, everything was fine. By April 2001 I wondered what small puppy I had run over to end up with this karmic payback. The boyfriend was gone, and with a layoff, so was the career.

Actually, the career could have been sustained. As it was I was still able to eek out a living in the tumultuous months of the dotcom bust before I eventually began law school. But the layoff forced me to look at my situation. When the best I could do in that career was impress the president of my company, no matter how much I liked and respected the president, that wasn't enough. I needed to be able to do more in this world.

For a long time, years and years, I'd been kicking around the idea of law school. When I was much younger I tried to kick it very far away, wanting nothing to do with it. Then when I was with my boyfriend, who himself was a law student, I started kicking it around more seriously. He was miserable in law school, but somehow that didn't dissuade me. I was becoming very curious about what he was learning and started to think that maybe, just maybe, law school was the place for me after all. But I did absolutely nothing to pursue it.

Until the layoff and my epiphany, at which point I announced to myself in a fit of pique, "Screw it, I'll go to law school." I let that thought sit and fester for a few weeks. If it was really only the product of a grumpy mood it would soon dissolve. But as it set in, I realized I was more and more at peace with the idea. It was off to law school for me.

I aimed high. I picked 5 schools I really wanted to go to, well-respected institutions in places where I'd be willing to live: Stanford, Berkeley, Harvard, Columbia, and Georgetown. I didn't get into any of them. But that was ok, I knew that might happen and I'd decided to apply in two stages. If I didn't get my top choices the first time around, I would try again the next year, and this time add some "safeties." I reasoned that it was worth it trying to get into those top schools, even if it meant delaying things. But I was only willing to delay it a year. At a certain point it would be time to get on with my life one way or another.

For the "safeties," I added UC Hastings, in San Francisco, Santa Clara, and BU. I did not include GW, and the only explanation I can give for that is that I forgot. When I thought about schools in D.C. to apply to I didn't remember it was there. I didn't remember that it was a similarly-ranked school as BU, with a respected IP department, in a metropolitan area where I'd be willing to live. So the reason I did not end up in the same predicament as Jewish Buddha was simply because I had forgotten to apply to the other school. D'oh.

But as it was, I still had my own dilemmas. Of all the aforementioned schools, I had acceptances to Santa Clara, UC Hastings, and BU. Santa Clara was the easiest to decide against. Although it is steadily crawling up the rankings in terms of reputation, and it's known for its IP curriculum, it wasn't yet at the same level where BU or even Hastings were. And this is where the ex-boyfriend had gone, and he wasn't exactly singing its praises. Trickier was the Hastings-BU decision. Hastings meant I could stay in the Bay Area. It was tough to decide to uproot my life, and the doubt I had about doing that still shows up in my life and is often reflected here. But I decided, before setting anything in stone, to make one more visit to BU, just to be sure that I was doing the right thing in turning it down.

I came out on a miserable weekend in March during a miserable winter in Boston. I came out from California on the red-eye, and bleary and jetlagged dragged myself over to the school. The first person I encountered, in the admissions office, didn't fill me with warm fuzzies. But I decided to meet some more people. I talked with a current student, I sat in on a class, and I had a long and lovely chat with someone in Career Services (who, sadly for me is no longer there – but gladly for her as she has left to pursue her own horizons). I spent a long time wandering around the law tower that day, and even as I rode the elevators constantly and gazed out the window at the intractable sleet I was overcome with a strange but undeniable sense that I belonged there. I'd picked up on that vibe too.

So you already know the end of the story, because here I am at BU. It is where I belong, particularly because I can make it be where I belong. I've gotten involved with committees helping make the school an even better place. I avail myself to as many of the opportunities available to me. I connect with classmates and professors. Even on the bad days, I still sense the vibe was right.

Intended for 11/17 but written and posted 11/21.

11/25: Allusions to Jewish Buddha's sex adjusted per comment below... Oops.