Law student blues

Your heart starts to beat uncontrollably fast, and sweat beads slowly form and trickle down the sides of your face. Your hands slightly tremble, and your knees start to quiver. You cast a pleading look at your seat mate, who manages only a weak and helpless smile. With the remaining strength and pride left in you, you slowly lift your face to your professor, and say: I am sorry, sir, I don’t know the answer.

Well, that’s law school for you. Every day seems like a battle you cannot win, and even if you feel that you got the lesson right, most of the time you’ll fall flat on your face whenever you’re called to recite. Chapters in the books are incredibly long, cases never seem to make sense with all that law jargon, homework and papers pile up every week, 24 hours in one day are too short for you to prepare for a test—and at the end of each week, you question yourself: What did I get myself into?

You were a valedictorian in college? That doesn’t matter. You won a lot of scholarships or academic awards before you entered law school? Nobody cares. That politician is your relative? So what? Once you enter the hallowed halls of law school, all of those so-called “achievements” you have used to boost your ego cease to exist, and you will find yourself at the bottom of the food chain along with everyone else.

I am not trying to be dark and discouraging to all those aspiring lawyers out there, and I believe that I don’t have sufficient experience to say that I truly know what being a law student is all about. Yet my intentions are clear and I don’t intend to stroke your fragile ego in saying this: Law school is not for the faint-hearted.

It took me a year after graduating from college before I decided to enter law school, and like any other student of the law, I carried with me certain baggage in the form of expectations and aspirations. It took me weeks to adjust to the pressure, to shift my body clock to evening classes, and to slowly accept the truth that there is no turning back now. There even came a point when I started to question all the reasons I entered law school, and the choice of quitting was already knocking on the door. I asked myself: Should I open it? In opening the door I could escape all the circles of hell, but then, as a consequence, I would shut other doors of possibilities that I might not see elsewhere.

I entertained the thought for a couple of weeks, trying to hide it from family and friends behind a forced smile. But when I thought of giving up altogether, I saw a hint of clarity in the confusion I was immersed in. It was during that afternoon when I decided to stop by a coffee shop to study before going to my classes. As I made my way through the crowd of people going down from the LRT station, I noticed three young public school children, all looking about seven years old, walking and chatting happily about their homework and their studies. They bore their worn backpacks cheerfully, although these were evidently a burden on their frail bodies. They were dressed in plain shirts and shorts and had simple rubber slippers on their feet. And they smiled and laughed.

Watching them, I felt a sense of relief and added determination: I cannot quit now. I cannot quit, for them.

Most aspirants decide to enter law school in the hope that it would be a good investment for the future: They may enter politics, get into government service, join a prestigious law firm, take up an advocacy like saving the environment—the list is endless. There is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to the field of law, but in most instances law students aspire for a better future for themselves and their family. Who wouldn’t? I would be a hypocrite if I said I took up law without considering that it could be a good investment for my future. Yet the fine line between personal desire and the desire to be of service to others is most of the time blurred, and one cannot deny that generally, it is the former that will prevail over the latter.

There is never a right answer to this kind of decision-making, and most of the time the decision will be left to you. The answer you are seeking will not be given outright; you need to search for it in the midst of confusion and vague circumstances. Yet little do you notice that it is during these times that you can actually find the answers (though not in their clearest and fullest form), and it is in these instances of lucid confusion and vague clarity that you will somehow realize that there is hope out there, even though it may just be a beam of light. That small beam breaks the enveloping darkness. You follow it and take hold of it, and you come to a realization that life is not as confusing and vague.

Those public school children were the beams of light that broke through the darkness that I had cast around me. They made me realize that even in my confused and uncertain state, even as I lick my wounds, my life still has moments of lucidity and clarity. I have wanted to be, and I will be, a lawyer for them, and if it means having to go through the ups and downs of law school for four more years, then so be it.

I feel really ashamed when I ponder upon the problems and pains those young public school children go through, while I complain of how difficult my life is. I have no right to complain when, despite their own difficulties, they don’t. I have no right to say that my burden is heavier than theirs when I know that they have no one to defend them. I have always been an advocate of education, and if being a lawyer is my way to serve these children, then I will take up the challenge.

Dropping your classes and quitting will never be an option once you know and believe that you are meant to be a lawyer, and why you want to be one. Stick to your guns and soldier on. Do I regret entering law school? Never. As long as I know that I haven’t eased the burden those children carry on their backs, I will not stop. As long as I haven’t done my part in defending them in the courts of law, I will not stop. And even if I cannot escape times of confusion and uncertainty, those children will be my source of clarity and lucidity. I need only follow them and I’ll know I’m on the right path.

I may have painted a dark picture for you, dear reader.

Being a law student is truly difficult and confusing most of the time. But don’t let that confusion bar you from pursuing what you truly desire, and I dare you to embrace those confusions and uncertainties. I dare you to face them and find the clarity you seek within, because it’s always there, and you just need to be brave enough to find it.

I dare you.

Bianca Angelien Aban Claveria, 22, is a law freshman at San Beda College of Law.