The Measure of a 1L
My 1L classmates and I should receive our first law school grades before the end of today. It has been so long since last semester that I had managed to put grades out of my mind. I convinced myself I had learned about torts and contracts for the joy that comes from new knowledge. When that didn't work I imagined I was some place like Yale where everyone gets a check or a check plus and is sent off to conquer. But, then yesterday my very kind and supportive professor gave my class a speech about not worrying about grades and told us that we will do great things regardless of where our grades fall on some mandated curve.
This speech had the opposite of its intended effect upon me. I was cast out of my relatively blissful state of denial and was hit with reality. The value of the hard work, sweat, and (yes) tears that I had expended over the previous four months would soon be crystallized into five letters. These five letters would, according to conventional wisdom, set the trajectory for each of our legal careers. Those with more 'A's will be on rocket ships blasting off toward corner offices. Those with more 'B's will be left to fight it out amongst themselves. Finally, those with more 'C's had might as well look into exciting careers as organic farmers or start looking for a more successful classmate who they might date, marry, and eventually live off of. I went home the night after my professor's very supportive speech and had a very frightening nightmare where my unimpressive grades were projected in front of my entire section. Of course, in my nightmare everyone else in my section had, somehow, gotten straight 'A's.
These were my irrational fears and from what I am told, they bare little resemblance to the reality of the importance of first year, let alone first semester, grades. What my professor had actually been trying to get across was that these grades will have very little to do with our long-term success and even less to do with our happiness. A quick search of "law school grades" online reveals that most people who have bothered to write on the topic have done so to reassure students in my position that law school grades are not all that important in the long run. Only those who have something to sell to law school students to improve their grades and law school students themselves seem to think law school grades are matters of life and death.
Even with the anxiety over my future success or failure somewhat assuaged I still find myself refreshing the "Display Grades" tab on GWeb as I write. It is not because I am in any rush to find out if I will be spending my thirties trying to make partner or milking goats to make specialty organic cheese. I think I am so eager to see these grades because I have been working about as hard as I ever have for four months with almost no idea how I was doing.
The first semester of law school is kind of like running in a marathon where all the runners are blindfolded. Sometime in August you hear a loud shot and you all just take off running. Some of us starting running the wrong direction and the crowd of upper classmen and professors yells from the sidelines to turn around. We eventually all run in the same direction but we are constantly running into one another, falling down, and veering off in strange directions. As the race drags on, the crowd gets more spread out and you are just running blindly forward and all you hear is noise from the sidelines. You hear one person tell you to speed up and another to pace yourself. One yells that you are in the lead and someone else that you need to catch up. You are running the longest, hardest race of your life and you have no idea how you are doing.
In December, someone announces that the race will be over soon and for the next three or four weeks you run as fast as you can, blind as a bat, toward the finish line. Then you finally cross the finish line! But, nobody tells you how you did. You go home to recuperate from this long and awful race because you know soon you will have to do it all over again. In January, you are back at the starting line but this time your blindfolds are off. You set off on your second marathon and you are feeling good. It feels much easier this time because you are in better shape and you can see where you are going. But, a few miles in, just when the memories of the first marathon are fading, someone taps you on the shoulder and tells you exactly how well or poorly you did last time.
