Welcome to Law School. Stay the Hell Off My Lawn.

2019, LMR Edition, Issue 0

MICHAEL FRANZ

Ugh, first years.
This is what happens when you have a slow submission week. With the big boss Editor-in-Chief Anisha taking up all the prime real estate in next week’s issue with her official Week One Welcome, it falls to your humble Managing Editor to scratch out something witty and avuncular for this here LMR issue, to help gird all you freshlings for your big adventure in law school. Problem is, that as an old man I don’t exactly speak the lingua franca of today’s youth. Add to that, right now I’m tired from staying up late watching The Devil Wears Prada, I left this piece way too close to deadline, and I’m sure that at this stage you’ve heard every possible variation of ground-breaking advice from your Pathfinders, orientation panels and assorted seniors to the effect of ‘remember to take care of yourself’. So instead, as De Minimis’ resident mature-age student, I’ve decided to go in a different direction and take time out of my busy schedule of hip replacements and heart medication refills to offer up a good old-fashioned grumpy rant. You children don’t get enough grumpy rants these days. Also, pro tip - nobody expects rants to have much thematic cohesion, internal structure or even good content, so it makes it easier to get away with lazy writing.

In no particular order, and with no real connectivity, here are some things about law school that bother me.

1. Revolving Door Etiquette

Kids today are spoiled with all your fancy doors. Revolving, automatic, power-assisted, card-swipe. Back in my day the only doors we could afford were sheets of flaking asbestos with scotch tape for hinges, and, even then only for special occasions - usually we had to cut our own holes in the sides of buildings just to get inside. If you insist on using the revolving doors, please respect some basic rules around personal space. As a refined, patrician gentleman, I have a healthy stride length of sixty-two centimetres (maybe, I didn’t bother actually measuring it), which means that a revolving door chamber has just enough room around the exterior arc for me to cross at an amiable saunter without having to break step. When you try to squeeze two or three people in at once, we just wind up tripping over each other, or having to break into those tiny rapid-fire two-inch shuffle-steps like a chain-gang on a hot sidewalk.

2. Culture of Social Media Purging

I don’t have the energy to keep up to date with all the modern YouBooks and Facegrams, but I have heard enough youths talking loudly in the library to pick up the basics. Some of you are going a bit too far sanitizing your social media profiles. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a new economy and even as we speak a shadowy cabal of future employees are hunched around a dimly lit boardroom table judging your holiday snaps but do try to keep a sense of perspective. I know a distressing number of classmates who not only un-tag themselves but will actually track down and request for photos to be deleted for something as trivial as, if they appear as a blurry figure in the background with a glass of white wine in hand. Beyond some personal anecdotes, I have no real idea how widespread this kind of obsession actually is, but for the purposes of my argument I assume it happens a lot. Practice some sensible personal brand management but remember you’re not the subject matter of a Royal Commission into illegal fun.

3. Elevators

If you’re waiting for an elevator on the ground floor, stand to one side so descending passengers can exit first. If you’re catching an elevator up and you arrive just as a door is closing, don’t hold up the occupants by pressing the button immediately and making the door reopen. Have the common courtesy to awkwardly pretend that you didn’t want to catch it anyway and wait a few seconds for another one.

4. Waiting for Class

If you arrive to a class early, don’t form a gaggle waiting for teacher to show up and let you in. You’re an adult. Just walk inside.

5. Microwaves
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The road to hell may be paved with good intentions, but it seems probable that hell itself is paved something after the style of the interiors of the first-floor microwaves. If your quinoa pappardelle or kombucha-marinated avocado leaks, explodes or otherwise makes a mess, have some human decency and wipe up after yourself.

Ok, I think that about covers it for now. Welcome to law school. Shoo.

​Michael is a Second Year JD Student and the Managing Editor for 2019.

More articles in this issue:

• Dear Prospective MLS Student (2016)
• Welcome from Washington 
• You Can Commit to Justice In Your Career (2017)
• JD: The Playlist