Righteous Keitt: 1st-year student says he was wrong about law school

At the time of writing, I have just completed my first month of law school at Indiana University’s Maurer School of Law. Thus far, I love it. This campus is beautiful, my classes are interesting, and everyone here has been so kind to me.

For as long as I can remember, I have always been fascinated by the laws, policies, and people that enable our government to function the way that it does. However, as I grew older, I began to realize that underlying my fascination with the law and our government was a desire to do more. I wanted to understand how I could use the law to improve the lives of those within my community.

This realization is part of what drove me to apply to law school. I wanted to go somewhere that would teach me how to use the law to make the world a better place. I figured that the most effective way to make that happen was to go to law school.

I expected this to be the place where I would learn how to refine my argumentative skills, to create compelling narratives, to perform in front of a jury, or at the very least how to draft a contract.

Thankfully, I’ve been proven wrong—so far.

I learned this lesson on my first day of orientation. They gathered our entire 1L class in the DeLaney Moot Court Room for a session titled “Building Community through Disagreement and Dialogue.”

At the front of the room, seated behind a desk, were two professors who, for the purposes of the day, would be debating on either side of a politically divisive topic. They chose to speak about “gerrymandering.”

The point of the session was to demonstrate how they would like us to conduct productive conversations with one another, especially when speaking about topics that we may vehemently disagree on, without it growing out of proportion.

I found the sentiment nice and informative. But I was more curious to see how they would decide to make their arguments.

As the debate went on, I flooded my notepad with questions and comments, completely forgetting the actual premise of why we were even watching this debate. Focusing primarily on the strategies each used in the debate, in a way, this moment was reassuring me that I had made the right decision—reinforcing my belief that law school was learning how to argue. This was exactly what I thought I had come to law school for.

After concluding their debate, the professors held a brief Q&A. Among the remaining hands in the air, the moderator gave me the opportunity to ask the final question before we moved on to the next session.

“When we eventually learn how to make our own arguments…” I started.

The question itself was needlessly long-winded. Essentially, I wanted to know when it makes the most sense for a lawyer to appeal to a court with an argument rooted in empathy rather than a logical fact-based approach.

Correctly sensing that I had completely misunderstood the point of their debate, the professors answered my question earnestly and then each added their own addendum. Though I neglected in that moment to quote their words exactly, their comments amalgamated into one central message:

The goal of law school is not to teach us how to argue or how to manipulate the law in a way that works in our favor. The goal of law school is not even to teach us how to be a lawyer. The goal of law school is to understand the law, to learn its goals, its structure, its philosophies, its achievements, and its shortcomings.

Assuming my understanding is correct, if we were to equate being a lawyer to shooting a basketball, then it would seem to me that what we’re learning about is neither the form of a jump shot nor where best to aim, but about gravity and how it’s the only thing allowing the game to be played in the first place.

There have been moments these first few weeks where it has felt like I am reading a completely different language. Other times have left me feeling vindicated for always choosing to skim through those “terms of service” contracts in search of an “opt-out clause” of their arbitration agreements.

I love it here.

So far, Civil Procedure has easily been one of my favorite courses, and yet it is the one I find myself routinely frustrated with. Not because of the professor I have or the cases we are reading, but because this course—more than any other—demonstrates how beautifully simplistic the law can be and how often our leaders fail to enforce these statutes equally across wealth disparities and racial divisions.

At times it seems like those with the duty to enforce these civil procedures would rather choose to ignore them if doing so benefits their political agenda or financial interest.

I’d hazard a guess that if these failures were to become routine, it could erode the public’s trust in our public officials, threaten to breach the social contract we as citizens have with our government and cause some to call into question the existence of the law as we currently know it.

That being said, I could be wrong. I’ve only been at law school for a short time.

In short, I was wrong about law school, and I could not be happier about it. It can be a lot of work and at times ridiculously hard to understand, and I miss my family, but I am so glad that I chose to come here.

There will come a day where I will be able to take what I have learned here and apply it towards a meaningful change, but for right now, I have a stack of torts cases to read by Monday.•

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Righteous Keitt is a first-year student at the Indiana University Maurer School of Law. Opinions expressed are those of the author.