Boston University School of Law

For law school purposes I am citing myself(as the creator of this picture)

As a person who has spent much of my time dedicated to creativity, originality, and independent thought, law school is somewhat hard to adapt to.

I come from the world of film and the culture of hip hop.

In film it is the goal of the story teller to find new and innovative ways to tell tales that have be told (try to say that three times fast) in new ways.

To take stories of love, revenge, greed, war, etc. and archetypal characters and give them new life by placing them in new settings or by introducing new obstacles or new twists and turns so that the viewer feels like they are experiencing some new and revolutionary.

In hip hop everything is about being unique and original.

As a poet and a rapper it is your mission to add to the dictionary of slang and to find new ways to sculpt and bend words (referred to as word play) to deliver your own vision and paint your own picture.

The mantra is to never ever ever bite someone else’s style.

All of these things are contrary to the mission of law school (which I should of known before I got here given the fact that while I interned in DC one of my mentors and family friends informed me that there was nothing creative about the law, but it my stubbornness and indeed cockiness I was under the belief then as I am now that those rules don’t apply to me)

In teaching you how to think like a lawyer law school sort of presupposes that all lawyers think alike.

From the time you arrive everything is given to in a sort of hand me down way.

The whole system is set up of sort of the way my family was set up when I was a kid (my big cousins would outgrow their clothes or jackets and pass them down to me).

You are given a 2L mentor who’s mission it is to find a locate “outlines” that were used by students who had your same professors with the goal of helping you to prepare for the exams which will inevitably be incredibly similar if not the exact same as they had been previously.

You are told amongst other things that there is no such thing as original thought in the law so make sure you cite everything or risk being found guilty of plagiarism whether it is inadvertent or not (ignorance of the law is no excuse),and risk the penalties which come with it (which anecdotally speaking can include being sent to war as an enlistee rather than as military “lawyer”).

You write papers which essentially state the exact same thing for 5-7 pages in virtually every sentence while simultaneously citing to various court cases which also do the same (the number of the cases is to show you read more than one case not necessarily to bolster your argument though I guess it does that too)

You are told or rather advised on which “secondary sources” and supplements to use to give you the edge over your fellow classmates, since he (she for all my independent lady friends) who can “reason” through a legal hypo and express themselves most like “model” answers (see exactly how the professor would have answered) best will reach the top of the 1L mountain and open themselves up to vast employment opportunities.

It is a world that becomes incredibly routine very quickly.

Indeed, most of the entertainment of law school also comes from “secondary sources” as gossip takes on a sort of religious experiences within the confines of the law tower.

Through all of this it becomes increasingly difficult to maintain your creativity or independence of thought.

Thankfully, I got lucky last week!

There was a talent show to benefit the Public Interest Project which allowed me to perform some poetry for the first time since I have been here.

It was very refreshing to be able to break out of the box of “secondary sources” and deliver something in my own words (yes I get to do the same here, but being on stage is sooo much different).

All of this makes me wonder how I will be able to work in a world where I do not have those opportunities. It remains to be seen whether a lawyer can actually have the ability to think creatively or if that is something that is strictly reserved for those who work on policy.

I hope that my ability to put together words and deliver them to an audience will help me in my role as a trial attorney which I want to do be, but in order to find out I still must get through 3 years of “secondary sources”.

It is true that there are obvious examples of people who used the law in incredibly creative words; the framers of the constitution and probably my favorite person in the world Thurgood Marshall.

However I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that I am unsure if that type of thinking is either what we are learning how to do or if it is even the mission of law school to attempt to teach us to do so.

The verdict is still undecided in both of those instances…

However one thing is true (at least for me) and that is I need to find ways to break out of this world of “secondary sources” and find a way to contribute to the world and the legal profession in my OWN way.

That is my mission and I hope it is yours too.

So as we prepared to quote and cite and regurgitate for exam grades, I hope that we will all challenge ourselves to dig deeper and use our experiences to become sources worth citing not simply reciters of sources…

I’m down are you…?