My Best Lesson in Law School
I had many wonderful profs in law school, and had the honour of two of them becoming clients after I was called to the Bar. I think they took pity on my struggling practice. But the most important lesson was from a fellow student who wasn’t even there. Here’s how it goes.
Back in the day you could complete an entire legal education and be called to the Bar without ever once setting foot in a courtroom. I know, it’s nuts, isn’t it? But that’s the way it was.
So, many of us took matters into our own hands and volunteered at the Student Legal Aid office where we took on the most basic matters in criminal, family, and Small Claims courts. Stuff where you might do some good and couldn’t do much harm.
In first year, you actually didn’t do much, you just shadowed one of the older, wiser second year students, and as such on a snowy December day I showed up at the old Family Courthouse on Bronson Avenue, ready to sit back and watch my friend Tony, the second year whiz.
Except Tony didn’t show up. At all. I don’t know whether he was still in bed, or at the Father and Sons Tavern across the street from the law school, or whatever. He just wasn’t there.
But the clients were there, and the cases were there, and the court clerk was looking for the Student Legal Aid law student.
“You Student Legal Aid?”
“Well, yes, kind of,” I answered.
“Forget kind of,” replied the clerk, “this lady has some questions.” Then he walked away and left me with “this lady”.
At this point I was maybe 20% of the way through Family Law 1. Pretty clueless, to be honest. I had no idea what to tell this poor unfortunate woman, but I did know what I didn’t know, and I knew that next week someone older and wiser would show up. So I stood up, looking as professional as possible, asking for a one week adjournment until a second or third year student would be present, with the look on my face telegraphing, I’m sure, “Please help me out of this!”
The poor woman looked relieved that someone was helping her out in the terrifying machinery of justice, thanked me, and went on her way.
That kind of scenario happened several times over the next three hours, interspersed with a bit of common-sense advice and comfort to various distressed individuals. Likely stuff they quickly forgot. But I never did.
The critical lesson that Tony inadvertently taught me about the practice of law, and life, is that you’re usually not ready for stuff that hits you out of the blue, that what really matters in the professions is not so much your 85% grade in Family Law 1 as your ability to think on your feet, to understand the crises of the people who are standing in front of you, and to advocate in such a way as to do no harm and advance their cause at least to the next square on the chess board.
This is not to say that academic content is not important. In my second year I won the national Lieff Prize for an essay in Family Law (https://rdo-olr.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/olr_12.1_bowley.pdf) . But academic content without the instincts and humanity is of little merit. Not just in law, but in every calling.
So, thank you Tony for throwing me into the deep end of the pool. Lesson learned!