Lately, we have been interviewing law students. This has caused me to have flashbacks to when I was in their position.
Such recollections give me some sympathy for these young applicants. It’s not exactly a fun process – for them.
In my third year of law school, I was invited to a second interview at a firm located in a rural area about an hour out of Richmond. It was not small (for those days) with about 10 lawyers. It was of some local prominence.
I was ushered into the large office of the senior partner. His colleagues were ensconced in soft chairs around the room.
My seat was a hard chair in the middle of the room.
As we started, one of the partners sitting almost behind me intoned:
Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
mi retrovai per una selva oscura,
che la diretta via era smarrita.
I instantly recognized this as the first verse of the first canto of Dante’s Inferno (which a few years before I had read in the original).
On my resume, I had indicated that I could speak Italian, although I made no claim to being fluent.
My Italian skills did not fail me. The partner and I had a brief colloquy. In fact, I probably spoke better than he did. (Looking back, I suspect his language skills were rusty and he may have been reading the Dante verse.)
At that point in the process, I figured I had aced the interview. How could it be otherwise after that brilliant exchange?
Later, I met with just the senior partner. In what seemed like a faux English accent, he pointed out that most of the lawyers in the firm had gone to top law schools.
I attended the T.C. Williams School of Law.
The lawyers there had been on law review or Order of the Coif or held other such honors.
He shrugged and noted that I had no such distinctions
As he described it, their firm was the kind of practice where you might be in a rural general district court one day and the next day arguing in the U.S. Supreme Court.
The lawyer explained that he didn’t think I would be “happy” at the firm. “Trying” to do what they would need me to do would likely be too much.
In other words, I wasn’t smart enough.
No job offer, obviously.
Despite my clear mental limitations, almost 40 years later I can say I have done just fine as a lawyer.
For those students and newer lawyers looking for legal employment, it might seem like you are wandering and lost in a dark forest – like Dante’s narrator caught in his “selva oscura.”
You’re probably not nearly as lost as you fear.
Hang in there.
