Lawyering Through Life

I probably shouldn't be enjoying this

I attended a conservative law school. I am NOT conservative. But, I respect that my law school had a conservative slant so I was not shocked to discover that my law school had selected Claude Allen, a domestic policy advisor to Bush, to be the keynote speaker. I regarded such a selection as inevitable. Hey, at least my parents will like him. I was significantly more concerned with how his speech would affect AKM, my good friend from law school who I spent so much time with that people expressed shock when we were not together. We took almost every class together and studied for finals together. We created incredibly *brilliant* outlines that were legendary among our classmates. Well, maybe not legendary but we were proud of them.

Law school graduation is a strange experience. You are excited to be done with law school but your biggest challenge, the bar exam, is still a few months away. I didn't feel finished with law school until I found out I passed the bar. But my family had traveled down from the Jerz to commemorate this event and I tried to put the bar exam out of my mind for that day.

Enter our graduation speaker. Claude Allen spoke for approximately 20 minutes about the war in Iraq, the need to spread democracy by force if necessary, stem cell research, judicial activism, and oh, yeah, how effing hard the bar exam is. In no uncertain terms, he told us that not all of us would pass the bar exam. Thanks, buddy. Not only do I passionately disagree with you making this graduation into a stump speech for Bush's policies but you are raining on my "don't think about the bar exam" parade. I finally tuned him out and started to think about the food waiting for me back at my apartment. When the speech ended, Allen received only lukewarm applause. Even our Dean looked stunned as he returned to the podium. Finally, it was time to receive our diplomas. My name was called, I walked across the stage slightly wobbly in my heels, shook the Dean's hand and there stood Claude Allen. I shook his hand politely and met his gaze. "Study hard", he warned me. I smiled one of those insincere smiles and my hand fell from his grasp.

Well, imagine my glee to find out that this man who ruined my law school graduation has not only resigned from the Bush Administration but was arrested last week on felony theft charges! Apparently, he purchased items from Target, loaded them into his car, went back in with the receipts, loaded those same items back into his cart and then returned them to the store. He was returning goods that he never bought. You can read all about it here.

Yep, I am definitely enjoying this.

posted by jersey @ 2:21 PM