"On Call" Part I

Perhaps the most feared aspect of law school (even more so than grades, finding a job, the 120k debt, and even the thought that you are NOT the smartest person in the class) is being "On call."

Most are probably more familiar with its colloquial phrase, "the Socratic Method," obviously named after one of the most well known philosophers of all time (and quite possibly the ugliest. If you don't believe me, check out " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socrates " and decide whether even his mom could love that face. It might explain why he was so grumpy and decided to make a living by arguing with everyone. Don't worry Socrates, or "So-Craights," if you prefer Bill and Ted's pronunciation, you were still "the man").


However, the "Socratic Method" in law school is somewhat different in form, if not substance, than that of Socrates' times. While Socrates was truly concerned about his subjects getting at the "truth" for their own moral edification, I think law professors, despite their 'good' intentions are mostly using this as a teaching method for other students (and at the obvious pain of the person "on call"). Although no where near as perverse as the "medieval creativity" of seeing that
water + slab of wood + wet cloth+ shackles= water boarding (water boarding=torture thank you very much),
the designers of the modern "Socratic Method" who also "creativity" thought that singling a student out + asking unanswerable questions + demonstrating the professor's superior command of the law = good legal education must be of the same mind (and must have been aware of the potential psychological impact that some, especially law students!, would argue is not to far from psychological torture, with long term and potentially irreversible ramifications). Some see this as a right of passage. The sane, however, realize the absurdity of the "Socratic Method" and the utter sham of the claim that it will somehow make us better lawyers (it is analogous to a parent who somehow thinks that it would make her 5 year old daughter more "mature" if she was forced to watch "Child's Play" before she could play with dolls).

Most of the psychological torture occurs prior to actually being "on call." Hearing the horror stories from upper classman or from retired attorneys who barely know who is president or what day it is but can recite minute by minute, detailed accounts of what the professor asked and what it felt like to be in his seat in 1923 is enough to keep one up for hours (as it did me). I remember talking to a few upper level students at the orientation BBQ outside the law school prior to the first day. I didn't want to come off as the typical "terrified 1L" and so was reluctant to ask what exactly being "On Call" entailed. But the fear of the unknown, and the fear of the horror stories, outweighed my social anxiety and so I finally asked. What followed was synchronized nervous laughter followed by profoundly awkward silence.

They knew what I was asking. They had been there, at that same BBQ, asking the same question that I asked the year or two before. What had them silent now? Why was no one speaking?

One upperclassman, tanned, bearded, sporting shorts and sandals (obviously a 3L) finally answered, "You'll see." Perhaps my immense dissatisfaction with that response was blatantly obvious to the other upper classmen who (unsuccessfully) tried to do damage control with "Don't worry, it's not THAT bad" or "You'll survive."

Thanks guys...

*****

After the blasting of the trumpet while the professor yelled "who am I?" and all the craziness of going to the wrong classroom, and going to countless seminars, info sessions, training, etc., I stopped worrying about what it would be like to be "On call." For consistency with the shark analogy in the previous post, it was similar to planning an awesome weekend at the beach and the week before your trip you hear that there was a shark attack "not too far" from the beach that you had planned to visit. Immediately after hearing this, you obviously think about canceling your plans, but after reflecting on it (how frequent are attacks anyway?) and after several days go by, you may have other things to think about. So then the weekend comes and somehow you've decided you really would like to go (after all, you don't necessarily have to go swimming since the water is probably cold and the ocean is probably polluted anyway or maybe you could just dip your toes in). So you're at the beach, the sun is blazing, the lemonade runs out, and it's time for a swim. You see others cheerfully frolicking in the water so finally you decide to kick off your sandals, throw off the glasses, splatter yourself (and whoever is sitting beside you) with sunblock while rubbing globs of it (along with a ton of sand) onto your face, and march straight towards the water. As soon as you get ankle deep, you realize how wonderful that cool water feels and imagine how amazing it will be to cool off the rest of your body with a good swim. Then, suddenly, you stop as a thought leaps out of no where -"Sharks, or at least the big one's, can't swim in 8 inches of water right?" After pondering the absurdity of this question, you quickly scan the water for larger, meatier individuals than yourself (as well as the small, pale and sickly type since those are the most likely to be noticed first by your dorsal fin friend) and realize that there are plenty of other "targets" so maybe you are safe to go waste deep (but no deeper).

Instead of going to the beach for a dip, my "plan" was going to class while hopping (no praying!) that I would not be called on. Like the above beach-goer, I too scanned for the "meatier" students that were more likely to be picked by the fin (students with 4 inch glasses, 400 pages of notes for 3 cases, 50 highlighters and a recorder) and the "sickly type" (those with pizza stains on their shirts who smelled like Coors and brought their beer pong ball to class). After scanning the predicted targets, I thought it couldn't hurt to review my case book one more time before class in case the fin somehow chose me.

Other students had been called on that first week. I remember exactly how it went. First, the nervous murmurs of people trying to quickly review the cases in the off chance that today was "their day." Second, the deafening silence 1 minute before class started when the professor would stroll in, toss his books onto the podium, thumb through his notes, and then, most dramatically, unroll the seating chart with all of our names and pictures and scan the page for his 'victim' of the day (the seats we sat in the first day became our assigned seats for the year). Finally, the professor would call the person by their last name adding "Mr." or "Ms" as part of the ancient law school tradition, pause for dramatic effect (more accurately, the professor needed to give the student time to retrieve their heart from their stomach, as well as the notes that had just fallen all over the floor, before the student could actually form intelligible words again) and then commence the intellectual torture session.

My session would come on the second day...


(To be continued shortly!)