A Law School Lament; or The Difficulty of Changing Direction

“If you do not change direction you may end up where you were heading.”  – Lao Tzu

Where am I headed? It’s a question all students ask, often to no reply. But for those of us down at the University of Auckland’s Davis library there were strong indications. The study of law was unashamedly directed towards a future career: we were being prepped for lives as lawyers and all that entailed. It didn’t matter how many of us pretended otherwise, the wheels were in motion and it would take more than flippant remarks and not doing the readings to stop their relentless roll.

Perhaps that was why one graduate felt the need to send a sensationalist group email, detailing his resignation in a poem and calling out his corporate employers in the process. He swanned down to staff drinks for one final beer, his controversial departure a response to the weight of the system and all its expectations. Why were people so surprised? Maybe it’s because no one had given any thought to what the study of law actually entails. Like me, they’d just dived in and gone for it – until it was too late to quit.