Choose a school or settle for one

I went to what is commonly referred to as a FTT or TTTT. That would be a “fourth tier toilet” to the uninformed. One step below a TTT, what is known as a third tier toilet. Awesome, huh? Makes me proud as hell.

I got an email from someone in the administrative office last week. They told me my diploma was available for pickup. I replied with a request they just mail it to me. I didn’t feel like burning the gas for the drive to campus and back.

One small step for man, one colossal leap into the abyss for legal education. So, they tell me anyway. I am not entirely convinced my law school was worse than any of the schools ranked one tier above it. If you’re not in the top 15 or so schools in the nation, it all just blurs into one mess as far as I'm concerned.

I have a lot of stories to share about my experience. In no particular order of importance, I’ll just start with this one. A few of the kids I had for classmates (yes, kids) had never heard the phrase “third tier toilet.” A girl I knew only superficially (I would said hello and she would grunt something in reply) was admiring a palm tree someone had drawn on a classroom dry erase board one fine spring day. She wanted to name it for some reason. Make it a mascot. I jokingly suggested “Triple T.” She didn’t get the joke. So, I explained it to her, TTT is shorthand for third tier toilet, a school that is not in the first or second tier of law school ranking. She was a member of the Federalist Society, a group well known for their mirth making and cheer. Need I mention she had no idea what I was talking about? No. Idea.

It never really bothered me much that I was attending school without the prestige of a sound ranking. My goal was always nothing more than an opportunity to hang my own shingle. I was living in a small town when I decided to attend law school. This was the town where my wife and I wanted to raise our daughters. This is the town we plan to return to now that I’ve completed my legal studies. Being a small town, it had no law school. We had to move to the big city for that. There are not many law firms in this particular town, and none that even slightly resemble the often glorified massive Big Law firms you find in large metropolitan areas.

I chose a law school because all I needed was a degree from an ABA accredited law school to sit for the bar exam. That’s it and that’s all.