I decided to go to law school in early 2007. I had been injured in August of 2006 when a drunk driver ran me down while I was on a bicycle. I awoke in the hospital with a broken back. Not something I’d care to repeat, but I made it through better than a lot of other people have. I'm not in a wheelchair and I'm not dead. So, I've got that going for me.
At the time, the most money I had made in any one year was $48,500. Not big money by any means, but money I could live comfortably on. My wife also has a career, so we're a double income family (isn't everyone these days). Our combined income made us comfortable. I really couldn’t complain. But, I found myself in a transitionary period. I had been recovering for eight months from my injuries, and the contract work I had been doing for the past few years had dried up. We lived in a small town, and the employment options were few. There wasn't anything I could find that would pay what I considered to be an adequate salary. I wan't a twenty-something with low overhead. I was married with child and mortgage. Simply stated, I had responsibilities.
I must have applied for thirty jobs that year. Really. I have a stack of rejection letters up in the office. I saved them in a manila folder all this time. I just re-discovered it as I was digging through a bunch of law school crap (most of which is now in the recycling bin). I secured employment, as I'm not a proud man. First was a webdesign contract job. It was a one month contract that somehow lasted for eight months. I never knew if I still had a job at the end of the current month. I just worked through each month, one at a time. My employer would say at the end of the month, "Can you come back next week?" The work was enjoyable, but the instability was stressful. The second job I took was that of an inventory manager at a retail store. The work and my co-workers were enjoyable, but there was just nowhere to go with that job. I came in at the maximum salary that the position would ever receive. Not only was I struggling to find decent employment, stable with the promise of future advancement, I also wanted to do something different with my life. Perhaps, upon reflection, it was my midlife crisis.
Can’t find a job? Go back to school. Improve your earnings potential. Make something of yourself. Wait out the economic downturn in the relative comfort of the vaulted halls of academia. Or, something like that anyway. I was not alone. That's what everybody thought.
My undergrad grades were from a lifetime ago. I was awarded a BA in Elementary Education in 1995. My cumulative GPA was a stunning 3.0. I had apparently centered my studies upon a foundation of binge drinking and pulling trim. At least for the first two years I spend outside my parent's home. As had been said by many people, many times before, my grades improved as I continued toward earning my degree. My final two semesters I earned a 3.77 and 3.85 (with a 4.00 summer session of two classes prior to my senior year in there as well).
My LSAT score was roughly commiserate with my undergrad GPA, another stunning number, a 153. Could I have prepared for the test and earned a higher score? Well, yeah. The truth is, I didn't prepare at all. It seems odd, if not indefensible, looking back now. I don't know what the hell I was thinking. I just signed up and showed up. Preparation zero. Too late now for it to make any difference. Maybe I should have tried.
My wife has been a member of the state bar since 2004. We had two children after she graduated law school and began working as an attorney. My options were slim with two children and a wife who, understandably, had little interest in sitting for a bar exam in another state. First, she would not be able to generate any income prior to her getting licensed in whatever new jurisdiction we relocated to. Second, preparing for and taking the bar exam is not exactly fun. It is an absolute mind-fuck of self doubt and stress. Essentially, my only available course of action was to attend one of the three law schools in our state. That meant a choice between one public law school whose medians were slightly above my meager offerings, a second public school I had a decent crack at, or a private, for-profit, bottom-of-the-barrel law school that would definitely have me.
I sat for the LSAT, collected the requisite documentation, wrote out the checks and applied to all three. No big surprise, you can color me FTT (aka fourth tier toilet).
Three years goes by, and yes, I graduated. My class rank was two-clicks south of dead center. Yes, I am a very average man.
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