Pride and Performance

Before law school, many of us had hobbies we liked to indulge. I love writing personal essays and this is one I wrote for a creative writing class in college. It has to do with law school...sort of. Enjoy reading :)

I started singing in the church choir when I was five or six. Always ambitious, I thought that if I paid homage to God twice a week—once at church and once at choir practice on Saturday—I would have a better place in heaven, up with the angels. Of course, this is also when I thought I was going to become a nun because I was so good at being pious. (I changed my mind once I discovered boys.)

Every weekend, I sang my little heart out and Kathleen, our director, would sing my praises to my father over the din of Sunday Catholics trudging out of their pews. For my first communion, Kathleen asked me to lead the church in song, mainly because I was well-behaved and had an adorable bowl cut. Ecstatic that someone important had recognized my god-granted singing ability, I pulled on my little white dress and veil that morning, congratulating myself on my superior achievement. Heck, to celebrate, I even dove into my sister’s supply of mascara, smearing it all over my cheeks until she came to rescue me from almost certain hookerdom.

As I mounted the stage for the first song, taking care to hold my dress like a princess and to primly place each white, patent leather mary jane on my way to the altar, a gaggle of my nemeses—the other, more girly choir girls—swarmed around me, assuming their positions directly in front of my microphone and edging me out. By the third song, when one of the Megans threw her hands up once again in my face, I’d had enough. I stomped off the stage and firmly plunked my behind in the pew next to my mother, turning bright red with the wheezing tantrum that was about to explode from my asthmatic lungs. I felt betrayed. Kathleen had sold me out.

Worse even, the gaggle of nemeses paraded around in their little white dresses to coos of admiration and their communions were not even that day! Those imposters! Sensing weakness, they crowded around my seat and informed me that Kathleen thought I would like some help—you know, just in case my little eight-year old self got a case of stage fright. Stage fright! I didn’t even know the meaning before she underestimated my superior soprano voice.

Sure enough, the big man in the sky punished me for my vanity that day, because I could never breach a stage again without going bright red and numb from the eyes down. Papers shake and curl in my sweaty hands. Perspiration forms on my upper lip. People swim in and out of my vision as I wobble in place. Heady self-consciousness requires something firm to hold onto. Most ironically, my undergraduate department chose me to be the graduation speaker. I’m pretty sure it was payback for never opening my mouth in class. They were dying to hear what I had to say after four years of classroom silence. Indeed, I’m sure many of them second-guessed themselves when I showed up to graduation red-faced, wet, and dehydrating by the second under the polyester gown in the heat of a New York summer. But I digress. (For the record, I knocked it out of the park. Check out the link up above if you want to see what I said.)

Seeing as how I abandoned my religion once I discovered boys (Hyperbole.), beautiful people make the agony of public speaking even worse. The piercing, crystalline eyes and sexy-casual demeanor of a hot spectator stand in stark contrast to the sopping mess I become when I take the stage. In an upper-level college seminar, two ex-boyfriends and an ex-girlfriend watched me stutter my way through a presentation on landmine removal in former war zones. I might as well have stepped on one during the second slide for all of the interest it would have stimulated in my discussion. Once I heard the embarrassed coughs and saw the cell phones come out, I knew I had lost them. I gave up trying to ad lib and just started reading the slides off directly so I could finish with some measure of dignity knowing that at least the information was out there.

Afterwards, my professor—another beautiful man—shook his head and asked me privately what I intended to do about law school, with the performance anxiety and whatnot. Stuttering, I retorted—to the best of my ability—that I planned to push paperwork for the rest of my life. I would be like Demi Moore in A Few Good Men: beautiful, silent, and deadly with a pen.

The Cold Call

There is a phenomenon in law school called "The Cold Call." It is the most feared experience of the first semester of 1L. By the second semester, no one cares. Your cold call doesn't determine your grade during 1L. Moreover, everyone's given up trying to impress each other. Your peers will judge you for everything that you say and do anyway. In and out of class, no one is safe.

Most professors savor the moment when they cold call an eager, fresh-faced law student. Even the most confident break down over the course of the hour where our professors stare us in the eyes, ask probing questions, and pause in anticipation of the answer. The pause is the best part. The whole class waits for you to open your mouth. No one moves a muscle. No one types. No one breaths. Everyone stares straight ahead. Some turn around to look at you. No biggy.

When I was cold called in Criminal Law--although it was the third time I had been cold-called last semester and I should have been a pro--I'm pretty sure I had some sort of panic attack.

I had lunch with my professor the day before and he asked me if I had done a case yet. Reluctantly, I said no and he told me that my day of reckoning was coming. (My words, not his.) The next morning, as I was showering, I considered just not showing up for class. If I'm not there, he can't call on me, I reasoned. But I knew he was going to be looking for me and I sat at eye-level in the center. I walked into class shaking, sat down in my seat, and pulled my books out of my bag with trembling hands. I tried to start typing notes but my fingers kept spazzing on the keyboard.

I had read the case four times. Briefed it. Re-briefed it. Knew that shit like the back of my hand. I can't remember the case name now but I know it was about burglary. Did I mention it's my professor's favorite case of all time? He re-reads that case for fun. He loves burglary. (I personally prefer rape and murder, but to each his own.)

The common knowledge definition of burglary and the legal definition of burglary are very different. We all have the vision of the burglar: swift like a jaguar, perfectly camouflaged for every environment, stealthy, smart, quick-footed. He would have to be in order to breach the sanctity of our homes, gaining access to the most intimate parts of our lives. Burglars cannot be stupid or slow or fat. They must be the picture of fitness, deftly twisting and turning their way through the laser beams that cross in front of the Hope Diamond. Burglars are crafty. And they steal things. At least that's what I thought when I read the case about burglary.

Burglary is not the act of stealing. It is the entry of a building with the intent to commit a felony. It's a pretty broad crime. And when I was put on the spot in front of my ninety some-odd peers, all I could think about was my pre-law school definition of a burglar. The professor's questions kept flying past me. I answered yes or no with no further analysis, silently praying that the torture would be over shortly. He asked me something along the lines of "Can a man burglar his own house if he enters with the intent to kill someone?" All I could think was: 'That's the most ridiculous question I've ever heard because burglary isn't entry with the intent to kill.' After that, my next thought was: 'You're a fucking idiot. Pull it together. Entry with intent to kill is burglary. But, can a man burglarize his own home?' From there, I blacked out. I don't remember a thing. The next thing I remember is my friend Victoria leaning over and asking if I was okay.

I wish I could answer that question for you right now. I guess technically he can but it just doesn't seem right. Moreover, if you're going to burglar your own home, you're probably about to do something that is far more serious than burglary. Like murder. I think first-degree murder takes precedence. No one goes to jail for the rest of their lives because they burglarized their own home.

In any case, he had me on the spot for forty minutes while I sweated through my clothes, turned bright red (really, people asked afterwards if I was dying), and mumbled incoherent answers for all to hear and judge my intelligence on. My first cold-call went far better than this one, but when I fondly reflect on law school I will always remember my epic fail at the burglary case.

It didn't really matter though. When the final came, I didn't for one minute forget what burglary was. Our professor loves burglary and it was all over that test. Shazaam!

tl;dr Blacking out during your cold call just means the information was sent to your subconscious brain. No worries :P