We're number 2!!!!

The number 2 result when you google "law" that is. I have recently been accepted onto LII - Legal Info Institute, and I'm thrilled. Kudos to Brian (computer Brian, not law school Brian) for first introducing me to the web site. Each year they take ~25 new associate editors to write up summaries and explanations of Supreme Court cases on the web. The guy in charge of it did an excellent job pitching it to us. He pointed out that in our legal careers it will be very helpful to be able to explain to clients in plain english just what is going on in the case, and he emphasized how much readership it gets - waaaay more than the print journals (Cornell Law Review, Cornell International law Journal, and Cornell Journal of law and Public Policy). And we get paid for it. It suits me philosophically to be trying to connect this world of legalese with the real world impact these cases have on people. And it suits me to be on the more tech-savvy, more "with it" journal that's geared to people other than lawyers, since if law school is any indication the legal field is disgustingly incestuous. And it suits me to not be on Law Review, which by all accounts gives you no practical skills (except things like "team work" and "performing under pressure" with which I have ample experience thank you) but does give you a fair amount of prestige, which the legal field takes ridiculously seriously.

I'm not dissing on the law in general. There are lots of lawyers out there who aren't like that - I've met and talked with some of them. Cornell Law, however, feeds the corporations / uber-large law firms, and in that world, things like prestige take on importance far beyond what could possibly be justified.

The profs are great, I'm getting a great education, and I even like my fellow law students as people to hang out with and dish gossip with and commiserate with. But the sort of "institutional outlook" of the school bugs me. However, there are a fair number of fellow Cornell Law students who also think such things are a bunch of hog-wash, and it's nice to know

I don't know why I'm getting on a soap box about how much I don't want to be on Law Review - its extremely competitive to be on it anyway so I probably would never have been given an offer. But I still can't definitively say "No, I will not do the writing competition to try to get onto Law Review" because I have this nagging voice saying "you should at least try - it might be good for your career." But oh how I do NOT want to do it!! I'm very happy to have landed on LII - that's where I wanted to be. So those who care about prestige may have their Law Review seats with no jealous looks from me!

But now it's bed time.