My fiance looked me square in the eyes. “No,” she said.
I’d asked – after discussing with her the pros and cons – if she would be on board with me matriculating at a part-time evening law degree program.
I didn’t blame her.
We’d taken a realistic look at what my schedule would look like – and it wasn’t pretty. I’m a full-time high school English teacher, a job I love and that takes more than 40 hours per week to do right. Between time in class and studying, law school would add at least 30 hours per week. Plus, I was forming a relationship with my fiance’s daughter, building a foundation for our integration as a family. And of course, we were planning a wedding and family honeymoon to Disney World.
I can’t count the times over the past four years we both have wished she hadn’t changed her mind.
Law school is a peculiar kind of torment. The stress of 14 weeks of logging hour after hour briefing cases, constructing outlines, and preparing practice answers crescendos into the uber-stressful reading week and a series of one-test-is-it final exams. Repeat the process for a total of eight semesters and two summers. Add a summer externship with a federal judge. Add a position on law review. Add a position as a legal writing TA. Add writing an 80-page law review article.
But the torment is made peculiar by one simple fact: I loved all of it.
Some aspiring law students matriculate with clear, practical career goals. I already had a job. I went to law school to indulge a sense of intellectual adventure. I figure if I honor my passions and cultivate my talents, the future’s details will sort themselves out.
That’s a sentiment I’ve shared with my students – and one I wanted to model. My excitement for learning sustained me through law school’s more harrowing moments. And now, though I started law school unsure that I wanted to leave teaching, I’m poised to graduate in the spring, take the bar over the summer, and start as an associate at a reputable firm here in town practicing in my top areas of interest.
The path has been anything but easy – for me and for my family. But what law school has meant for me is fulfillment, the opportunity to live life deeply by exploring my passions. Now I look forward to building a practice that combines my loves of learning, teaching, and law and lets me devote time to the issues most dear to me. And yes – it will pay the bills with some extra to spare.
My transition from teacher to lawyer has required strict devotion to excellence in my studies, and I don’t regret it for a second, despite the sacrifices it required. I will leave law school a better man than I was when I entered.
But future evening students take note: I don’t think I could survive it again!