Oh, The People You’ll Meet

Yes, I know. Other people have done this. Done it to death. Done it better. That’s never stopped me before, and it’s not going to stop me now. Because… well… these are some of the people I’ve met. Odds are good that you’ll meet them to if you go to law school. It’s not a guarantee… but the odds are in favor.

These, uh, don’t represent any real people. Any resemblance between them and any real person is purely coincidental. I swear.

The Former Jock — These kids usually played ball at some D-III school nobody’s heard of aside from the players’ own mothers or they played some little sport at a bigger school that nobody went to watch, including the players’ own mothers. Most of them are in pretty decent shape… which means they are leaps and bounds more fit than most of your classmates. They are not shy about showing this off or telling people about it. “War stories” are common. And frequent. And repetitive. And both you and the Former Jock wish that person was back at that school and still playing that sport. At least while they’re talking.

The One That Time Was Nice To — You know, the one that everyone says “wait, he’s 40!?”

The One That Time Wasn’t Nice To — “He’s only 40!?”

The One Who’s Always Gotten As — These kids, when they are told ‘Virtually everyone gets Bs’, are the ones who think “Not me, I’m getting an A”. Tell them they need to be in the top 10% of a class to get some kind of A and they’ll say: “Top 10%? That’s it? Looks like a 4.0 semester for me.” And then you hit Fall Break and when you come back most of them are so scared that they might get a curvy grade that anything can reduce them to tears. More unfortunate are the ones who crash after the grades come back. At least they can cry themselves to sleep without having to go to class the next day.

The Guy Who’s A Little Too Nice — This is always a guy because girls can’t be too nice. God only knows why this guy feels the need to be extra nice to everyone, but he does. Serves an important role for The Ones Who Got All As by telling them how great they are. Even if they’re not. Why’s he too nice? Who knows! It could be anything… fear of rejection, a desperate need to be liked by everyone, or sometimes he’s just sincerely extra-nice. Comforting, maybe, but not any less annoying from time to time.

The Girl Who’s Slept With Half the Class — Ok, so I lied. Girls can be too nice. There won’t usually be a Guy Who's Slept With Half the Class because girls talk about this stuff and he’ll get shot down way, way sooner… labelled a player and will have to resort to screwing undergrads for the rest of his law school career. This ends up not being as bad as it sounds. The girls get away with it because a) the guys don’t talk about it, b) the guys don’t care, and/or c) They probably tell every guy he’s the only one… and he’s probably stupid enough to believe it.

The Frat Boy / Sorority Girl — There will be a lot of people who used to be in fraternities and sororities… but there won’t be as many who think they still are.

The One Who’s Rabidly Liberal — Those who are liberal in a normal, Nanny-State-desiring, entitlement-system-loving sort of way are a dime a dozen. But ahhh the The One Who's Rabidly Liberal makes them all look like Antonin Scalia. The uber-hippy hates everything Republican and conservative and will throw him or herself into convulsions at the mere mention of the “Free Market”. You will often find this one congregating with supple minds, encouraging them to “speak truth to power”, whatever the hell that means.

The One Who’s Rabidly Conservative — They generally tend to keep to themselves unless you give them an audience and a topic to get stupid about. But then they really shine and the rest of the class sits back and thinks “God, I didn’t know he was one of those” while The One Who's Rabidly Liberal writhes around on the floor.

The Newlywed — If you see them very often it’s probably because they are a part of a sub-group: The Newlywed with a Long-Distance Spouse. Nice enough people, you suspect, but don’t have much impact on the law school scene.

The One Who Sucks Up — Unbeknownst to you, at least for the first 4 months, this is half of your class. There are a few, though, that go above and beyond the brown-nosing call of duty and do something truly remarkable that will mark them for years to come. Unbeknownst to them, their sucking up won’t help.

The Baddest Mo-Fo in the Class — Like being the meanest one in the convent or the cleanest-smelling one at the protest, being the biggest bad-ass at the law school is not a great feat… but this person will be silently proud of it. Nobody will take them seriously, or be the least bit intimidated, but the bad-ass will be very impressed with himself anyway.

The One Who Knows Everything — This is 80% of your class. That is a conservative estimate.

The One Who Knows Everything and Would Like to Tell You About It — You will be hard-pressed to find a topic on which this person does not have a strongly-held belief that they are willing to share with you at length. You’ll probably find that their opinions, at least on first glance, seem to be well reasoned and backed up by some sort of research or fact… but it should look that way — they’ve had years to practice.

The Would-be Trend-setter — Usually from some place else. Usually thinks they are bringing you the newest fashion, music, slang, or attitude. Really the only thing they’re bringing you is a whole lot of annoyance. And Christ do they bring it.

The Self-Righteous Upperclassman — Really this is any 2L or 3L who bad-mouths the 1L class. This person doesn’t have the time or inclination to learn anything about the 1Ls, of course, but surely the new kids couldn’t possibly be as smart, handsome, classy, clever, or desirable as the upperclassmen are, right? He or she usually has a few pet 1L friends that are deemed, for whatever reason, worthy of attention and friendship. The law school would probably be a better place if these people died in a fire.

The Cult Leader — Alternately: The Charismatic One Who Befriends a lot of Shy Nerdy Types. It’s more of a “cult of personality” than a “wear your robes and drink your damn kool-aid” cult.

The One Who is Determined to be a ‘Cool Kid’ — Some of these people have been in the “In” crowd since high school. Some of them have never been “cool” but are determined to be cool in Law School. Luckily, this will not be hard. You’ll see them hanging out together a lot. The group or groups can be highly incestuous.

The Bitch (male) — Behavior very much similar to that of a six year old. Substitute tears for poorly-executed and highly-cliched sarcasm and it’s a spot on match.

The Bitch (female) — Probably should be The One Who Wants You to Think She's a Bitch. She won’t hesitate to tell you so, but she generally tries too hard. Keep an eye out for when it gets to be too much and her facade cracks.

The One (Wo)man Train-Wreck — When these people go out for a night on the town, you want to be there. I promise. The way you’ll feel when you wake up the next morning will be nothing compared to how bad you’d feel if you had to hear about their latest escapades second-hand.

I could go on, but I probably shouldn’t. I’ll let commenters fill me in on the ones that I missed. Let it not be implied that I think the law school is a worse place for having these folks around. For the most part they add to the culture and landscape in a positive way. If nothing else it gives you something to gossip about when the only things that you can fit in your head are the elements of a tort.