ONE
HELL:
March thoughts on law school
- by Alice
Marie Beard,
written while a first-year law
student
at The Catholic University of America, Washington, DC
(Ms. Beard went on to earn her J.D. from George Mason U.)
My life is in transition, and transition times
are the most confusing. My role is no longer
"mother," yet I have no clearly defined new
role. I have been in transition since a year ago when I
applied to law school. When I was "just a mom,"
I got little respect even tho I was doing something
worthwhile. Now I'm a law student; I'm worthless as teats
on a boar hog, but I get more respect than moms.
One day I took the subway to
school. Leaving the station, I saw a politely dressed,
slender woman of about 40. She was skillfully shepherding
three children thru the DC subway system. Perched on the
back of her head was the cap of a Church of Brethren
woman. It was as small as a muffin and so sheer it might
have gone unnoticed. My years of genealogy research
kicked in, and I asked, "Brethren?" The lady
smiled and said with a bit of a German lilt, "Yes,
from Lancaster." She meant Lancaster, PA, home to
many Anabaptists. I wanted to talk Yoders, Cripes,
Huffords, Shivelys, and Studebakers, but my life had left
that stage. All I could do was shake hands, say,
"from Indiana," and cross the street to get to
class and do what I could to make it thru this
transition.
Behind the scenes at the law school, something
was happening that spilled into my world on Valentine's
Day. One of the kids imagined that my
"thoughts" were invading her privacy. She
complained to an administrator. The interim dean first
spoke with the university's general counsel and then
instructed two assistant-deans (one a lawyer) to call me
in for a meeting. Thus, an assistant dean sent me a
Valentine: "Please make an appointment to see me and
Dean so-and-so." I arrived at the meeting with a
smile, and with no lawyer at my side. A man 15 years my
junior had before him an inch-thick stack of pages that
had been printed from my personal web site. Someone had
highlighted various passages with a yellow highlighter.
He hemmed and he hawed, and I said, "Cut to the
chase." With a lawyer at his side, at the request of
the interim dean, he said, "We think you're doing
okay so far, but we have some suggestions."
My response was instantaneous. I stood. My smile
vanished, and I said, "This meeting is OVER. If you
have anything more to say, contact my
attorney." I was hurt and insulted. As I wrote to my
old friend Randy, "The man could not have offended
me more if he'd shoved his hand up my sweater."
Randy and I went from kindergarten thru high school
together, and he wrote back, "What did you say? Was
your second word 'you'?"
I asked to see the interim dean. He and I are the same
age, both graduated from high school in 1968 in
Midwestern cities with big rubber factories. Since 1968,
we'd traveled different routes to get to the same room,
on the same March day in 2000. He said it was not a First
Amendment issue. In the law school world of "spot
the issue," I said I knew: The First Amendment
doesn't apply at private schools. [The controlling cases
are Lloyd Corp. v. Tanner, 407 U.S. 551 (1972) and Pruneyard Shopping
Center v. Robins, 447 U.S.
74 (1980).]
I tried to explain my position: I had done nothing wrong,
and I had paid them $24,500. We've got a contract: offer
+ acceptance + consideration. And, the reasonable
first-year law student would be intimidated by being
called in by a couple of deans. The law school's
intimidation, intended or not, was hurting me. The
meeting with the two assistant deans had been the Friday
before a paper was due; the meeting with the interim dean
was two days before the rewrite was due.
It seemed like another instance of the law school having
great consideration for the kids, but none for a woman
trying to rebuild a life after 20 years as a mom doing
community service. I'd begun venting online because I
felt like an outsider at the law school; I'm from 20 to
28 years older than the other 31 students in my section.
The response the law school had chosen to my private
writing was making me feel more like an outsider.
I experienced a few classroom successes in the
past month, to the surprise of some of the kids. In
criminal law, chance had me present a 1964 perfect
self-defense case out of Colorado, People v. LaVoie.
Man in car was forced off the road by man in another car;
men got out of their cars; aggressor driver advanced on
first man once outside their cars; first man had a gun
and a license to carry; fearing for his life, first man
shot dead the aggressor. The prof said, "Miss Beard,
a hypothetical: You are his lawyer, and he says to you,
'I wasn't afraid. I'm glad I shot the man.' What would
you do?" I answered, "I'd try to make sure he
did NOT say that. As soon as I saw him, I'd say, 'First,
do not speak to me at all. Listen carefully to what I
say. IF you feared for your life, you have a perfect
self-defense case.' I'd explain the law to him. Then, I'd
ask him if he had feared for his life." Some in the
class groaned and saw me as a bad person; the professor,
however, indicated there was some hope that I was
learning. [Click here for a similar case from 1865, found in my
genealogy sleuthing days.]
In property, we worked on the Fair Housing Act. To prove
discrimination, you've got to prove that the person doing
the discriminating knew that the "victim" was a
member of a protected class. A light went off in my
brain: To prove the case, the lawyer had to prove each
element. I asked, "Might there be some circumstance
when a lawyer would want to advise a client to politely,
graciously make clear he is a member of a protected
class?" Again, the class groaned. My question was
not politically correct for the kids. The prof is out of
Yale, Class of '71. He didn't give his answer, but he
flattered me by speaking to me after class as if he
thought I might not be as dumb as my grades said.
In constitutional law, we plodded thru the case about President
Truman trying to seize the steel mills during the Korean War. The prof wanted the
"key word phrase" from a concurring opinion.
The words seemed obvious. One smart student after another
guessed, with no indication of any comprehension. After a
dozen guesses, I spoke more in annoyance than brilliance:
"Workable government." The prof said,
"RIGHT, Miss Beard!" I heard a few audible
gasps from the back of the classroom because, after all,
"Miss Beard is the class dummy."
Look, I'm not smart, but I do get an occasional right
answer, and it's a real thrill when I do.
But my answers are far from all right. One day in
property I made the law school gaff of exposing that I
hadn't read the case. The topic was division of assets
upon divorce. I asked about "celebrity
goodwill," putting a dollar value on a spouse's
professional fame. Had I read the case, I'd have known
the answer. The prof asked me about that day's case, and
I admitted he'd caught me.
In con law I volunteered to present the case about an Illinois
dairy wanting to sell milk in Wisconsin; it dealt with the commerce clause of the
Constitution. I presented the case only to have the prof
want more than I had to give. This prof is also from
Yale, and Yale has the reputation of producing the best
law professors. Like my property teacher from Yale, this
man works at teaching in a non-threatening way. He has
"no fault pass." The trick is that, if you
pass, he will politely call on the person sitting next to
you, so the pressure to have the guts to try comes from
the person sitting next to you. I had volunteered so as
to avoid being asked to present a harder case, but this
man specializes in picking apart the tiniest details, and
I didn't see the details within the details. As a student
who passed up admission offers from two first-tier law
schools said later, "If you volunteer in his class,
it's like a bear trap. He never lets you go."
We'd had a 1994 case dealing with where to send your
garbage. The musician in our class, a man who has
performed in some of America's finest concert halls, was
asked to explain Justice O'Connor's reasoning in a
concurrence: "Well, they only give us one sentence
in the book; so, based on hyperbole and extraction . .
." and the musician tried to guess what the judge
had been thinking. We seldom look at whole opinions. We
read tiny snippets of judge's decisions and are expected
to get a paragraph of thought from only a sentence.
There was a fund raiser auction in February.
Lunch with the priest-professor went for $600. Poker with
the professor who is Madeleine Albright's son-in-law went
for $800. Dinner and a movie with a torts professor went
for $900. I bid on a study session with the interim dean,
a constitutional law professor before his stint as
interim dean: Eight students, 320 bucks. When I saw him,
I joked that I'd bought him like a piece of meat, but I'd
respect him in the morning. If I'm still welcome at the
study session, I'm hoping it will supplement the tapes
I've been listening too. I'm trying for enough
understanding to manage a C from the man who likes
details.
Our seventh week of the semester ended with a BBQ. As I
headed for burgers and beer, I walked by a student who
had entertained himself much of the year by laughing at
me. He was not in my section, but we'd had contracts
together first semester. As usual, when he saw me, there
was the laugh. He is one of the kids, fresh from college
and about 22; he has the years of a man, but the manners
of a child. I'd had a week of two or three right answers,
and I was finally tired of the derisiveness he'd offered
since September. I asked him, "Why do you laugh at
me?" I expected him to deny it. No, instead he said,
"I'm not laughing at you, Alice; I'm laughing WITH
you. When you speak in class, it's so funny because you
don't understand." The young woman sitting across
from him glanced at him in disgust and said, "He
treats everyone that way." I looked at this kid and
gave him an education that he'd been unable to buy with
his $24,500 tuition: "You may graduate in the top
ten per cent of the class; I may never graduate at all.
But if you walk into a job interview with your
know-it-all, smart-ass attitude, no one will want
you." A few days later, the young woman said,
"He's improved." Some of these kids have more
to learn than a law professor can teach.
I suspect I was admitted in part for "flavor."
I'm a genuine Catholic mom; this is Catholic University's
law school. Some of these kids still need a mom. However,
sometimes a mom is a pain in the ass. Just ask my kids.
Summer looms, and students are appearing in suits, headed
for job interviews thruout the day. Few first years will
get paying positions this summer; most first years spend
the summer in unpaid, learning jobs. Several in my
section will be in Poland in the school's "summer
abroad" program. I've no idea what I'll do this
summer.
I am in transition, and I'm not sure where this
transition will take me. A couple of years back, my son
was going thru some tough times. For Christmas, I gave
him a sterling silver belt buckle. Engraved on the inside
are the words, "Listen to God." These days, I'm
trying to listen to hear what He wants me to do with the
second half of my adult life.
Alice Marie Beard
March 13,
2000
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