The rhythm of briefs (1990-1993)
Looking back, I think the transition from music school to law school was really more about immaturity and less about law. In music school I was a very young 19-year-old just not capable of understanding the nuances of serious music. The difference between learning and then racing through a Bach Prelude and Fugue on some crappy out-of-tune spinet, versus playing a more relaxed, musical version of the same piece on a Steinway, completely escaped me at that age. It was enough just being in an environment with those that knew the difference, and I suppose just spending the years absorbing Brahms and Schoenberg for later. But I never really "got it" musically until I hit my 30s.
After arriving back in Oregon after being in Arizona for seven years, I moved to Portland and worked the summer of 1990 at the Multnomah County Circuit Court as a "floater clerk." I would move from courtroom to courtroom and fill in for court clerks that were sick or on vacation. I would handle and mark exhibits (including ghastly murder and autopsy photos), swear-in witnesses ("Please raise your right hand"), and fill out the final order or judgment in criminal cases that the judge signed. I was in court all day long, occasionally speaking on the record announcing further proceedings and dates. It was fun to see good lawyers in action, and oh were there a ton of bad ones. By late summer, it was time to pack up and move to Eugene for my three year stint at U of O. I would be a duck.
Law school sucked. When I started my first year in 1990, the University of Oregon law school was located at the edge of campus in a cement building with most of the classrooms underground. It was literally like a jail. I hadn't read a book in about five years except for maybe short stories by J.D. Salinger or an occasional magazine, and suddenly I had 6-7 hours of reading a day, much of it filled with latin phrases and insanely complex "rules of law and equity," plus being thrust into classes filled with the most arrogant back-stabbing segment of the population known to exist - American law students. Unfortunately, many are cultivated even further into this generally evil disposition and demeanor and, hence, all the lawyer jokes. I hate to say it, but there is a reason attorneys are despised! On the bright side, there are shining stars in the profession, and I luckily work with a bunch of them. Back to law school. I'm shuddering already.
Law school is like taking a perfectly good creative brain, lifting it outside of its skull, and then slamming it into the side of a curb for three years straight. Every 16 weeks come exam time, the brain is placed in a four-way vice and squeezed for three hours a pop to ensure that any remnant of compassion or humanity drips away, and then the brain is neatly lined up in a row in the road with a couple hundred other similarly-situationed brains, compared and graded. A fleet of steamrollers appears and slowly flattens them each one-by-one. This is called grading by a curve. And then you enter your second year. Your brain is changed, the world appears in shades of reasonableness governed by standards of care, and there is a little latin rule of law for everything trivial that happens. The actual practice of law is still a complete mystery because of course they don't teach that - what do you think this is, law school? And then the process repeats itself for a third year.
Leaving 171 fellow classmates after graduation was the easiest thing I ever did it my life. It's not that any single one of them in particular was "bad," it's just the collection of the entire mix of law students and the theoretically-based curriculum that made the whole thing feel like I was forced to eat a plate of eggs covered in Blistex. It wasn't exactly the most creative environment to say the least.
For some reason, I ended up in the top 15 percent or so of my class, and I actually won first prize - the "Best Brief" award at the end of my first year. I can remember being stunned at the awards ceremony when they called my name. It was like winning the law lottery. The next day I had two job offers in my student mail box, and I was able to get hired on at a great law firm in downtown Portland after my second year for a summer clerkship. That led to a full-time position in 1993. I can remember my job interview explaining to one of the partners that legal writing and argument was very similar to musical composition. The rhythm of factual and legal points and argument must be metered, with the entire brief similar to sonata form or else the reader would become hopelessly bored, confused, or the punchline lost. The partner just looked at me like I was insane, but somehow I got hired on anyway.
During school, I had sold all of my musical gear and barely played a note for three years. I had a black Mexican Fender Telecaster, a cassette recorder, no amp, limited access to a piano, and no time in any event. All of that was about to change.