So one of the purposes for this blog is for me to write about law school. I never wanted to come to law school. Let's get that out of the way up front; this is not the culmination of a lifelong dream. My reasons were largely unarticulated. In many ways they remain so.

I've been in classes for a few weeks now. People keep asking if I'm enjoying myself, or if it's hard, or if I made the right decision. The truth is, I go through so many emotions every day that I'm not sure how to answer them. Law school is a means to an end. To many ends, actually. My classmates are quite intelligent, and I enjoy conversing with them. But to the schooling itself?

Realization #1: Law school is not a marketplace of ideas.

My wife suggested the phrase--one that many of her undergraduate professors used to describe college education. And it definitely applied to my undergraduate experience as well. But I have already had one professor tell me that my writing was "too academic." She didn't want to say "dumb it down," but that is eventually the phrase she settled for. The silver lining was apparent when she added, "This would be great for 2L work, maybe on the law review or even in moot court."

But for the moment, no one wants to talk about judicial shamanism or cultural norms or the legitimacy of legal authority. They want to talk about how the law is a sterile instrument of pure reason, a gift from the (secular or religious) gods. They want to abstract rules from cases (whether those rules are really present or not) and they definitely do not want to discuss why their teaching methods, which were long ago rejected by most of academia in favor of more efficacious approaches, persist to the point of anachronism.

Specifically, they claim the focus is to teach us how to "Think like a lawyer." Vaguely, it means be analytical and capable of thinking under pressure. I'm beginning to believe that the problem with our legal arena has its roots not in the flawed character of our country's lawyers, but in the flawed methods which have been universally adopted by ABA approved law schools in educating lawyers. Because in addition to generic analytic training, there is an implicit attempt to shape our idea of law in general--and not in a way I entirely appreciate.

"Ah," I hear the reply, "What do you know? We are experienced and you are not. We know what makes good lawyers. We've been doing it for years."

That may be. I'm not yet so prideful that I cannot learn a thing or two. And as disappointed as I am in the focus of most of my classes, I am not entirely unhappy. I am surrounded by some of the best minds of my generation. I am pursuing a degree with myriad career opportunities--not to mention the capacity to change the world for the better. My children will benefit from my future status perhaps even more than I. I'm as stereotypically idealistic as just about every 1L out there. But I am as stubborn as the mountains and as patient as the dead. I will get what I need here.

The question is, can I find a way to simultaneously get what I want here?