Not a Student, Not Yet a Lawyer

Basically, in this weird in-between, I'm a law clerk. But like an advanced law clerk that is expected to produce solid work because I have a law degree. Mostly, I research. Then I write about what I've researched. I also review documents. Thousands and thousands of pages of documents.

So you want to be a lawyer? Say hello to Doc Review.

They always joke when you're in law school, that the first year of your associate life will be spent in a windowless room reviewing documents. I now understand it's funny because it's partially true. When you submit a request for production to the other side, who ostensibly does not want to give you helpful information, they inundate you with documents. I think someone once told me this is technically illegal, but it's all 'done in good faith.' (You can almost hear the pitiful, "I didn't know what you'd find helpful" traveling across the expanse to your ears).

This week was sort of a crash course in doc review for me. I had the task of reviewing 3000 pages to redact any confidential information. It wasn't too bad since I was the second person to go through these stacks. On Monday though, we're expected to get over a hundred thousand pages and that's when the real fun begins. I think if you amassed all of the documents I've produced in my lifetime, it would still not total a hundred thousand pages so I have no ideas what those homies have been doing the past few years.

REGARDLESS, this is the kind of work you can look forward to doing your first few months out and I repeat, it's not that bad. If you're nosy, like me, it's kind of interesting. You can get lost in the stories the pages tell and law suits always involve super scandalous things (though law school may have warped my definition of 'scandalous').

So yes, I will read every email Homie A has sent the past two years and I will wonder how his curtain buying excursion with his wife panned out. I hope you've lead an interesting few years, Homie A or it's going to be a very long week for me.