The minute you step into law school, you enter a whole new world. No matter how many books you’ve read or how many videos you’ve researched online, you still won’t be ready for the fresh hell that is to come.
The minute your professor gives you those first thirty-six cases to read and digest, you’ll doubt whether you’ll survive the next four years. The first weeks will feel like two years of stress crammed into one as you try your hardest to speed-read through the mountain of Supreme Court jurisprudence. Those thick textbooks that are around a thousand pages each call to you every night, even after you turn off the lights. You will hate yourself for sleeping for thirty minutes longer than you intended because you could have digested a case during that time.
Yes, law school feels like Calvary sometimes. The plethora of required readings will stress out even the most organized student every once in a while. You are suddenly immersed in this new field, hoping you don’t drown in the process. You are very quickly seeing things in a new perspective as you try to think like a lawyer.
The biggest change when you gain more knowledge about the details of the law is when you see its application everywhere. You tend to analyze the legal aspect of everything. You start assessing people’s actions based on their legality. Even watching movies becomes a lot more complicated. I once watched a movie that I had seen about five times before. It was Paano Ang Puso Ko? starring Rico Yan, Judy Ann Santos, and Wowie de Guzman. It was just a good romantic film to me before, but after watching it again as a law student, I found myself analyzing it. There was a scene where Wowie punched Rico, not knowing that the latter was suffering from an illness. He did it to avenge Judy Ann, whom Rico hurt. From that scene, I was formulating legal questions in my mind. Can Wowie be held criminally liable for punching Ryan? If Ryan had died after taking the punch, what crime would Wowie have committed? When you have a good understanding of the legal system, legal issues show up everywhere, even in the simplest things.
Another change is that the news makes more sense. Those Senate hearings and discussions about the law and how it applies to situations are suddenly entertaining to you. You also begin to understand people with unpopular opinions more. For example, I read the case of People v. Turner online. Sympathizers of the victim were outraged because of the unfair decision of the judge. The defendant, Brock Turner, was a student at Stanford University. He was seen sexually assaulting an unconscious woman after a party. The prosecution asked for six years in prison, but the presiding judge, Aaron Persky, sentenced him to only six months in county jail and three years of probation.
People petitioned for a recall of the said judge, saying he does not deserve to be on the bench. However, the Commission of Judicial Performance found no judicial misconduct on Persky’s side. His sentence was within the recommended range, and if the prosecution believes it was an unjust ruling, they should appeal the case to a higher court. Recalling the judge is not the remedy in this case because such efforts threaten the judicial independence of judges, which is essential in upholding the rule of law. Most people do not understand this or its importance. If a judge could be bullied off his bench because of an unpopular decision, then the justice system crumbles. I personally do not agree with his ruling, but he may have seen something in the facts of the case that we have not. A lot can happen in court. Lawyers could be very persuasive—it’s part of the job. Nevertheless, the case is still not over as of the writing of this article. However, the fact remains that Judge Persky is not guilty of illegal or unethical conduct.
Because law affects anything and everything that goes on in society, you can see its application everywhere. If you’re a law student or a lawyer, you’re trained to see the world from a legal standpoint. It’s inevitable to think legally about everything.
In the first law school-related seminar I attended, Atty. Joan de Venecia told us that after you step into the legal world, law becomes a part of you. You can’t stop thinking about it even after you leave the office or the courtroom.
Even after just a few months into law school, you will be wearing a different set of glasses. These glasses then become a permanent part of you. I just hope this new way of seeing doesn’t cause blindness.
It's a Ping Thing 