“Everything I'd encountered so far - the law, my classmates, the great piece of discovery - had left me in deep thrall and I was bent on making sure that continued. I would have the best of it, I decided, whatever the obstacles.”
In the memoir, Turow offers a glimpse into the law school experience as a first-year student in one of the most prestigious law schools. He recounts the faculty-student interactions, personal ordeals, comradeship, and the challenging experience of studying law. The vivid descriptions are rather distressing, especially for aspiring law students, but demonstrates the dynamic in a highly competitive arena of academia. Therefore Turow highlights grueling challenges and competition among students due to the fear of failure or mediocre performance. However, also expresses the triumph and sense of accomplishment that comes with every ordeal suffered in becoming a lawyer.
“The fundamental tension of the profession is the struggle between bold advocacy of the client's interests and the need to establish and hold to limits that prevent advocacy from leading to irrational and inequitable results”
Turow focuses on his experience as a first-year student at the Harvard Law School while getting acquainted with the comprehensive yet arbitrary legal sphere. He has to unlearn the assumptions about law school and the legal system that new law students possess. In essence, we learn about the intricacies of practicing law in the real world with the ambiguities in the law, human nature, and society. Therefore, in practicing law there has to be a balance between understanding the complexities of the legal system while being an ardent representative to the client.
“It was something like stirring concrete with my eyelashes.”
Studying law requires analyzing numerous and extensive materials in order to extract relevant information from the cases. In the statement, Turow describes the challenge of wrapping his head around the vital information, volume, and vocabulary while reading his first case. It encapsulates the grueling exercise of reading for exams that will determine the overall performance of each law student. The stakes are high and the competition is severe hence adds to the pressure of grasping the lessons and reading the materials.
