[This article was published in the June 2003 online issue of BusinessWeek Magazine. Teaching first year law students brings me back to those days when all these observations were yet to be something learned and lived. I therefore post this article for their education.]

Perhaps lawyer jokes tell it all. The most recent one I’ve heard poses the following question: what do you call ten thousand lawyers shackled at the bottom of the sea?

Answer: a very good start.

In this post-Estrada, revolution-giddy society, lawyers and the legal profession have become more and more the subject of scrutiny under our exacting social microscope— and the verdict does not look all that rosy. Indeed, the impeachment trial, the assumption of GMA to the presidency, and the subsequent Estrada criminal cases, coupled with the recent decisions of the Supreme Court involving PEA-Amari, Meralco, and Piatco have given those who would otherwise be indifferent to these seeming legal gobeldygook a taste of what appears to be the job of every lawyer: turning white into black and turning black into white.

Early on in his legal training, the law student himself is exposed to this seeming duplicity of lawyers and the law. At first blush, this duplicity often leaves him confused and disheartened. But as he grows in his legal education, he will come to realize that if indeed it is true that the lawyer turns black into white and white into black, it is only because he is, first and foremost, called to be an advocate: one who speaks that others may be heard. This is not argumentation for argumentation’s sake; rather, it is so that the judges and justices— those who have been given the immense responsibility to rule upon a controversy— might study every side to an issue, every argument, however absurd, in order that they may reach a fair and equitable judgment. This is the power advocacy at work; and it is a lesson that must early on be learned by any law student worthy of his salt.

Of course, advocacy is only one of the many subtle lessons a law student picks up in his time in the law school. There is also the lesson of humility. All law students will testify: law school is a thoroughly humbling experience. Indeed, the fact that one graduated with so-and-so award from this so-and-so school does not at all matter. Everyone starts on equal footing. Among the important events which contribute to this realization: 1) Everyone screws up in recitation. 2) Everyone flunks an exam or two. 3) Everyone, at some point or another, feels the utter powerlessness of having one’s professional life entirely in the law professor’s hands.

Often, survival is a simple question of luck and pure circumstance: such as reading thirty-four of the thirty-five cases assigned for the class, and the professor calling on you to recite on the thirty-fifth case. Many feel bad and stupid after the first few times, but most live with the humiliation and embarrassment. It is all just part of the game.

Then, there is also the lesson of balancing the academic and the personal. Studying law, after all, is hard enough without the jealous barkada, the demanding girlfriend, or the nagging mother intruding into the student’s already cluttered sphere of thought. Add to this the classmates whose personalities are so diverse and opposing, that many sometimes feel that everyone is just being tolerant of everybody else. A friend of mine put this in the following terms: “In law school, there are no boys and girls— only brats. It’s like high school all over again, but without the innocence.”

Of course, it is best to take this observation with a grain of salt. But I think it speaks a very important truth. Indeed, being placed in a high-pressure situation, in an enclosed space, with the same people, five, even, six-days a week, could understandably bring out the worst out of anyone. The law school classroom, after all, is really a lesson in pop sociology: a veritable fishbowl, where everybody is free to observe every body else, at all angles at all times. In such a small community, it would appear that the only pastime between classes and cases seems to be gossiping about who’s dating whom, and who did what to whom. If one is not careful, therefore, human relations in law school could indeed turn into a true Sartean nightmare: No Exit, where hell is really other people.

Finally, there is the most important lesson (I think) of living with disillusionment. As early as the first semester of their first year, the law student is reminded of the nobility of the legal profession, and the majesty of the Rule of Law. Rightly so, for indeed, the legal profession is noble and the Rule of Law is majestic. Unfortunately, however, the reality of the matter does not quite measure up. Pushing forward, the law student realizes that the profession is not as glamorous as is perhaps portrayed in Ally McBeal, The Practice, or most recently, in the Estrada Impeachment trial. Professors are wont to remind their students that a good part of a lawyer’s life is stuck in the office, typing pleadings, and following-up on cases. And add to this the incompetence of some judicial officers and the blatant corruption in some courts.

The perceptive law student, therefore, is left with a stale taste in the mouth, wondering, half-crazed (due to the volume of legal material before him), whether the nobility of the legal profession and the majesty of the Rule of Law is truly any match against the silent, if not twisted, eloquence of the one-thousand peso bill. Indeed, there is nothing more vexing than the discordance between concept and reality, and it is this metaphysical unease between the Rule of Law and the Reality of Legal Practice that the serious law student faces everyday of his legal education; one that will surely vex him as he goes forward into the practice law.

Lest I be misquoted, let me say that there is indeed love in the study of law, as there is nobility, friendship and loyalty. But coming down from the lofty perches of ideals to where, in the world, there indeed seems to be no exit, there also exists corruption, betrayal, and dishonesty. Law school is the preparation where all these realities begin to exist for the law student; it is the microcosm— and a very convincing one, at that— of the real legal world. Law school, therefore, becomes the annealing ground upon which the advocacy, humility, balance and disillusionment first find expression, and which will, in the end, determine the kind of lawyer— good or bad— the law student is to become.

Ideally, then, the law school experience should be considered as one long examination of conscience. It is a venue where the would-be lawyer is given the opportunity to test his limits of compromise, and where ultimately, he may also discover his non-negotiables. Hopefully, at the end of this search, he may find, among these non-negotiables, the principles of truth, justice, and fear of God. If not, then we will all be in deep trouble, for not only would the lawyers find themselves shackled at the bottom of the sea, but our whole country as well.