> In law school, they told me I wouldn’t be able to read anymore. That the pleasure of the text, like a lover in a non-law degree, would slowly grow opaque to me.
This is strange — I never heard anything remotely like this in law school, and most lawyers I know do a good deal of outside reading. I wonder where the author heard this advice, and why she doesn't say who "they" is.
Am I the only one who never heard this cautionary advice in law school?
I never heard anything like this either, and in fact my own experience was opposite that of the author's: the precision emphasized in law school simply adds an additional dimension to the enjoyment of prose (or, once in a great while, poetry).
The whole idea that "thinking like a lawyer" should mean you forget how to enjoy reading and writing reminds me of Keats' claim that Newton destroyed the rainbow by explaining it. It's unfortunate that the author had such a bad experience with the law - but this is either strikingly bad pedagogy or simply a poor match with her specific personality, and shouldn't be taken as a reflection on the practice of law itself.
I'm also reminded of tabletop gaming, where if done well the rules text affects the je ne sais quoi of the game without having to be so crass as to actually tell people how to play.
One example is the game Monsterhearts, where you play Buffy/Twilight/Teen Wolf/etc "teenage supernatural drama" types. The rules are carefully designed to make relationship drama and petty inter-group conflict a natural result of play, even if the players are levelheaded sorts who wouldn't act that way at all on their own.
I never went to law school, but I did spend a few years consulting with law firms. And it was then that I learned to read critically. And strategically. Even after a PhD and some years in academia. However, I didn't read much fiction then. There just wasn't enough time.
Maybe it was that person's experience they mistook for a useful generality. I personally experience this reading 8+ hours a day but I probably could get into more casual reading if I really wanted to.
It is weird to say to people that I read constantly but I think the last novel I read was several years ago.
As part of my current job I have to read about 100 - 300 pages of technical material a day. I still read for pleasure, but less so when I cross that 300 page marker for a day.
The worst was when I had to review ~ 10,000 pages of material for a presentation. I wasn't reading all of that -- I maybe read 1/10th in great detail, and skimmed half after I determined it was relevant -- but even so, for a couple of weeks after that I didn't read for pleasure at all.
Yes I guess I do read a bunch of non-work stuff, or stuff that may be work someday :P I did re-read Douglas Adams, and I guess I read The Grapes of Wrath, that's within the last decade... I'm sure I've read some New Yorker long pieces, and I guess I do watch a lot of film.
However, I can think of lawyers who have been novelists (Louis Auchincloss comes to mind) or notable critics (John Jay Chapman). And certainly I've known quite a few lawyers who read widely.
People taking exception to the first sentence about not enjoying reading are missing the point I think. This article describes really well the way that, for me and a high percentage of my fellow law students, law school sucks the joy out of all the other parts of your life.
For me it was some combination of the subject matter's tediousness, endlessness and the pressure to perform, along with the idea that what you're working toward is a 40 year career doing that same thing. Not necessarily a correct or rational view but one that easily takes over in law school.
For me it was some combination of the subject matter's tediousness, endlessness and the pressure to perform, along with the idea that what you're working toward is a 40 year career doing that same thing.
I'd be curious to know when you went to law school and what you did afterward. Are you still in law? Many practicing lawyers I know love what they do and find it very interesting.
The same problem presents itself when switching from prose to poetry: too much of the text seems to exist only for the sake of the form and, therefore, must be consciously filtered out in order to get to the "real content."
From the book the article references, the Alchemy of Race and Rights, Harvard Press:
"Some time ago, Peter Gabel and I taught a contracts class together. (He was one of the first to bring critical theory to legal analysis· and so is considered a "founder" of Critical Legal Studies.) Both recent transplants from California to New York, each of us hunted for apartments in between preparing for class. Inevitably, I suppose, we got into a discussion of trust and distrust as factors in bargain relations. It turned out that Peter had handed over a $900 deposit in cash, with no lease, no exchange of keys, and no receipt, to strangers with whom he had no ties other than a few moments of pleasant conversation. He said he didn't need to sign a lease because it imposed too much formality. The handshake and the good vibes were for him indicators of trust more binding than a form contract. At the time I told Peter he was mad, but his faith paid off. His sublessors showed up at the appointed time, keys in hand, to welcome him in. There was absolutely nothing in my experience to prepare me for such a happy ending. (In fact I remain convinced that, even if I were of a mind to trust a lessor with this degree of informality, ·things would not have worked out so successfully for me: many Manhattan lessors would not have trusted a black person enough to let me in the door in the first place, paperwork, references, and credit check notwithstanding.) I, meanwhile, had friends who found me an apartment in a
building they owned. In my rush to show good faith and trustworthiness, I signed a detailed, lengthily negotiated, finely printed lease firmly establishing me as the ideal arm's-length transactor. As Peter and I discussed our experiences, I was struck by the
similarity of what each of us was seeking, yet with such polar approaches. We both wanted to establish enduring relationships with the people in whose houses we would be living; we both wanted to enhance trust of ourselves and to allow whatever closeness was possible. This similarity of desire, however, could not reconcile our very different relations to the tonalities of law. Peter, for example, appeared to be extremely self-conscious of his power potential (either real or imagistic) as white or male or lawyer authority figure. He therefore seemed to go to some lengths to overcome the wall that image might impose. The logical ways of establishing some measure of trust between strangers were an avoidance of power and a preference for informal processes generally.
On the other hand, I was raised to be acutely conscious of the
likelihood that no matter what degree of professional I am, people will greet and dismiss my black femaleness as unreliable, untrustworthy, hostile, angry, powerless, irrational, and probably destitute. 2 Futility and despair are very real parts of my response. So it helps me to clarify boundary; to show that I can speak the language of lease is my way of enhancing trust of me in my business affairs. As black, I have been given by this society a strong sense of myself as already too familiar, personal, subordinate to white people. I am still evolving from being treated as three-fifths of a human, a subpart of the white estate."
This is strange — I never heard anything remotely like this in law school, and most lawyers I know do a good deal of outside reading. I wonder where the author heard this advice, and why she doesn't say who "they" is.
Am I the only one who never heard this cautionary advice in law school?