Clever Title

My last work day last week, I wrote Ben a memo, which I sent by email. One lawyerly trait I have is an obsessive compulsive need to check over what I've written (not so much here, as this is supposed to be therapy.) I read over the memo a couple of times; it was about evicting homeless people out of a dead woman's house because her heirs want to sell it. Even though they're living there, Ben and I still call them homeless. They don't pay rent, you see. And calling them homeless makes it easier to kick them out of their home just in time for the start of winter. This is lawyer's work!

So the memo is about what we have to do to evict these poor saps. I reread it and think it's a really good argument I make about it being really complicated to kick them out (not really) and how it would take a super long time (I guess) and that it would be better to sell the house with them in it. Ben probably won't agree, for the more tasks we [I] do, the more he gets paid. (I get paid 18% of how much he charges clients for the work I do. Awesome, isn't it?). But maybe he will agree, as he, with 30 plus years of experience, apparently knows absolutely nothing about evictions. I see a bunch of eviction notices in his floor piles [files], but I guess they're the work of his last associate.

The memo seems pretty good, I'm happy with myself, and am feeling a little less guilty. Then I see the first line:

"To: Ben Waterman"

Doh! Ben Waterman is Ben's name in this blog, so the old fool won't hire someone to sue me. I'm worried about being fired too, but that would just put me out of my misery.

I logged in to Ben's email account. I know his password because it's his name. His email is bwaterman@domain.com, and his password is bwaterman. He didn't read that email yet, so I deleted it and sent a new one. No harm, but that was close. I fear being embarrassed more than I do being fired. Probably another lawyerly trait. Not good.

While Ben's email at least has a password, his computer is completely defenseless. His wireless router is totally open. Anyone in the building can use his connection. Moreover, all his files are shared and his firewall is disabled. Want to know someone's address, phone number, bank accounts, and social security number? Come to our building with a laptop and a wireless connection. Too lazy to do that? You can use Windows Foldershare to log on to Ben's office and home computers. The username is his email, and the password is his name.

At least Ben's office has a kind of security system; any thief looking for documents to steal will be deterred by the awful chaos. I'm waiting for Ben's clients to give him identity theft work.

Law school is a weird version of television high school

Are American high schools really like the ones they show on TV and in the movies? Are there jocks, who date the cheerleaders and bully the nerds? Are there homecomings and dances, sports competitions, unintended pregnancies with hilarious consequences, geeks mustering up the courage to take on the popular kids, and all those other things?

I ask because I didn't go to a high school like that. While there were cliques and coteries (the stoners, for instance), their composition was mostly based on their members' ethnicity or musical interest. I think we might have had a basketball team, and a few guys liked to run around the track, but I don't remember any jocks. There might have been nerds. However, if there was any sharp division between any two groups at the school, it was between the special eders and the retards. The distinction between the two was that the special eders took a yellow bus to school and got caught when sneaking into the building after cutting class while the retards walked or used public transportation and usually didn't get caught. Most of the school fell into the latter category. I don't remember there ever being a dance, homecoming, pep rallies, etc. We didn't even have lockers or trophy displays. Maybe we had all these things and I just hung out with the stoners too much, but I doubt it.

While high school wasn't like the high school TV says it is, law school was, but in a weird, unsettling way. First, there were lockers. There were dances, the Barrister's Ball being the most significant. There was a trophy display case in the hall. There were various events that were, beneath their scholarly veneer, pep rallies. Now, that's perhaps a little weird, but not unsettling.

What I find unsettling is that jocks at law school are actually nerds. Whereas in a television high school the jock plays some sort of sport, in law school he (or she) is bespectacled and on the moot court team. These are the people that win the trophies. The popular people, apart from the jocks, are also nerds. They belong to the law review. Just as in television high school there are degrees of popularity, there are in law school. The lesser popular are on the lesser journals--international law, urban law, entertainment law, or whatever they were. There are also lesser jocks, like those on the alternative dispute resolution team.

All the way at the bottom of the popularity chain is the person like me. The unknown outsider who hates being there. We know the type from TV. If the story isn't told from the nerd's or geek's point of view, it's told from his (this is usually an indi film, while the nerd's story is from a bigger studio--probably because the nerd market is bigger than the loner market). Here I am telling it. What's weird about it is that on TV this lowly high schooler is there because it's mandatory. In law school this person is there voluntarily, for unknown reasons, even to himself.

He is so unnoticed that not even the bullies are aware of him. Yes, law school has bullies.* Unlike TV high school, they hide on the internet in places like this. Their bullying, like their racist, sexist, and homophobic comments scrawled on desks in the lower levels of the library, is largely ignored. Until, however, it leads to something like this. Then every law school-affiliated person quickly tries to denounce it, while in their heads relieved that they weren't caught for whatever god-awful thing they've been doing. Some of the bullies turn on the exposed bullies. Sharks feasting on wounded brethren, it's beautiful.

*When I wrote that, I honestly thought it was surprising that law school has bullies. What was I thinking? It's probably because it's time for bed. It should be surprising that not everyone in law school is a bully. They are lawyers in training, after all.

Technorati Profile