We have it easy

Compared to lawyers in Pakistan right now, we have it easy. Appointing conservative justices on the Supreme Court is a far cry from firing those who are likely to rule you can no longer be the president. This raises an interesting question that we have been talking about in my Law and the Holocaust class. What is a lawyer to do when you are confronted with an illegal action that you are either charged to carry out or you see taking place in violation of the constitution you have taken an oath to uphold? Musharraf has all the guns (Army) so it may mean risking your own life.

That is one of the things I like about the law. Yes, this appears to be a dangerous but fulfilling profession. If you know me or have read this blog, you know that I once thought I wanted to be a professor and spent two years on grad school researching Nietzschean philosophy. But in the end, it held very little meaning. The law presents real moral, ethical, and philosophical issues almost every day. It is applied philosophy, because underneath all of the obtuse decisions by the supreme court is a client, whether that client is man on death row or the most powerful government in the world. Even my work as an intern at a municipal prosecutor's office comes with considerable power. The possibility of getting an article published on environmental visions of Nietzsche's philosophy pales to getting $50,000 bail set on a guy who was carrying a Glock 9 and violating a protection order.

Basically, I spent a long time looking for a job that I really enjoyed, and I finally found it. Although it is kind of hard to feel right now as I move into the 100th minute of Business Entities Class. I better not speak too negatively about this area of law or I am apt to end up practicing at a transactional law firm. (Many of you know that the law school gods have this power). That aside, there was a line in the movie Braveheart that I have always found inspiring: "you are not really living until you found something worth dying for." I am sure glad I don't have to risk my life to practice law in this country, but that is probably what a bunch of Pakistani lawyers are feeling right now.

working sick or sick of work?

I am working from bed today. After two days of sleep, I tried going to class yesterday, and it took almost everything out of me. I haven't been sick like this in years. My girlfriend keeps telling me I just have to stay in bed if I want to have any chance of getting better soon, but I don't like just lying here watching advertisements for Binder and Binder, Social Security Disability Advocates. I did that kind of work last summer, and I know that the $600 a month one can get from Social Security Disability would not be enough to live on. Still, it is hard to get focused on school again. I just picked up the trial record for the appellate brief I have to write in legal writing and wonder if I am ever going to be able to do this work day in and day out.



I am at a difficult point in my studies. Thus far I have been carried along on the spirit of naive curiosity. I knew so little about the law when I first started. I don't think I knew the difference between a law and an ordinance, let alone what a summary judgment was. The whole thing was such a mystery to me that it was exciting. I felt like I was learning a whole new way to see the world that I had not previously explored. Let's just say, the honeymoon is over.



It is not that I now find the law boring. Rather, I find it overwhelmingly complex and difficult. There is so much detail that I have to learn that I feel I have lost touch with my initial excitement. I must be experiencing what those students who always wanted to be lawyers experienced during the first year of law school: this stuff is technical, often very dry, and requires an immense amount of work to be successful. It is no longer enough to just be curious. If I am going to learn this stuff, I am going to have to want to learn it. Unfortunately, I am not blessed with one of those brains that can simply learn information for the sake of accomplishing the task at hand. I am the type of person who has to feel that what I am doing has meaning.



Lying in bed with aches and a stuffy head really gets you thinking about why it is you are doing what you are doing. Would I rather be doing something else? No. I have tried other "careers," and I can tell you that you run up against the same wall. I am up against the wall that separates armatures from professionals, getting by from solid accomplishments. This is not just a legal challenge but a challenge in myself to commit to something and do it the best I can. Maybe getting sick will help me get over this hump. As Nietzsche said:

“Enduring habits I
hate... Yes, at the very bottom of my soul I feel grateful to all my
misery and bouts of sickness and everything about me that is imperfect,
because this sort of thing leaves me with a hundred backdoors through
which I can escape from enduring habits.”

I feel like I have been going non-stop since this semester started. In fact, I feel like I have been going non-stop since law school started. So much so that I was not so much learning this semester but getting through. I feel like being out of the look sets me at a new starting point and maybe I will escape through the back door and begin to feel less overwhelmed by the mass of information I need to absorb.

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