divine angst

Today I went and heard the author of Barman, Alex Wellen, talk.

And he said one thing that I thought was very interesting and encouraging. He said (and though this will be quoted, it’s really a paraphrase), “At heart, most lawyers are really writers.”

Yes, yes, yes! I mean, that statement sort of holds my entire reason for going to law school. Of course, I obviously have an interest in the discipline, but if I didn’t feel that a career in law would afford me opportunities to write and publish, I probably wouldn’t pursue it. Because there are lots of disciplines I find interesting but don’t want to study in graduate school because I’m pretty sure that that, once I had the degree, I wouldn’t write about the discipline I found so interesting any more. I’d be busy doing other things. But lawyers—well, they may do other things, but mostly they write. Write and write and write.

So, yay for Alex Wellen. (Who has a blog, though he updates infrequently because he is on the junket.) Yay for someone saying out loud that lawyers are writers.

One more thing: a statistic he offered up—there are 1,000,000 lawyers in this country and 400,000 of them are not practicing lawyers.

So this is how my plan goes:

On Monday (by which I will, presumably, have my LSAT score), I will purchase LSACD on the Web. I will install it on my husband’s computer, the one with the really excellent big monitor that sits at the desk with the really cushy chair. I will begin filling out my applications.

Meanwhile, I will give my main letter-writer his requested packet of information about me. I may get that to him today or tomorrow, but if it has to wait till Monday, that’s not a big deal. He will need my LSAT score anyway.

Hopefully, by the end of next week, my portion of my applications will be completed. I will send them in as money allows—and as I complete any additional essays they require.

With this plan, I will have turned in all of my apps by the first week of November, and they will be complete as my recommendation letters are sent in. My deadline to my letter-writers is November 12. So my apps will be complete by Thanksgiving.

Now I just have to figure out if I can afford to drop $1K on application fees.