Lawyering

So I'm often asked what its like to "lawyer" or my family will ask how lawyering went today. I'm not sure how many TV dramas people watch, but no I do not represent criminal, I do not spend time in the jail brokering deals,  nor do I spend time in the courthouse.

I spend my days researching issues, drafting motions and discovery, and responding to opposing counsel's motions... aka I write a lot. I also do other random things like find documents that contain certain words or find a case that says xyz and was most likely heard in such and such year... (you new lawyers know what I am talking about). But mostly I'm learning about what it means to practice law. It's so not what they teach you in law school.

No one stops to teach you how to draft discovery or write a motion and yes you may learn what terms means, or what some of the various motions do, but no one teaches you to draft them and do it well! No one teaches you what it's like to bill hours, to think about what you are doing ever 6 minutes, or didn't do. Law school doesn't tell you about filing at midnight or juggling several cases for several partners. They fail to mention what its like to exist in a firm. They try to tell you, but its hard to explain.

What they do teach you in law school is to think, rethink, and think again. Question why things are they way they are and to never stop. Look at every issue and look at it again.

The practice of law is just that, you practice every day, hoping to achieve perfection. But law is an ever changing, ever evolving concept. Each judgment rendered is a potential new twist and turn to the law.

So, as you're reading this, I'm not going all Alex Cabot on someone, I'm sitting in my new-to-me, with the Aggie-colored carpet office billing typing away! ~The Illegal Blonde