Books and Their Covers

This is a quick post to record a thought I had today: When did we start labeling politicians as "D" or "R" in the media? 

It strikes me that the party designation carries a lot of baggage with each representative politician, regardless of their actual conduct, speech, or voting records.  It's a shortcut for the public, but taking shortcuts in this area may be a really bad idea.  One of these days I want to find out how that practice started, why it started, and whether the benefits outweigh the risks.

Of course, we use labels to short-circuit experiential judgment constantly, and the legal profession is one of the worst offenders.  Journal membership, clerkship experience, GPA, LSAT score, specialty bar membership... It all affords us an "easy" way to identify ourselves and sort each other into groups.  But knowing the resume-padding nature of many of these things, how do you boost their effectiveness? How do you convey their reliability?

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The Grind

Image via Wikipedia
Tonight I'm in Washington, DC, preparing to go to bed on the eve of what is likely to be my only occasion to witness the arguments in delivery of the United States Supreme Court. 

Despite my luck, I'm having a difficult time bring truly excited about this trip if comes dur as betty bad time for me, as fast as scheduling goes. And in many ways it feels like just another work obligation. At least, it this until I thought about three experience in depth.

I've been invited by a justice of the Supreme Court of Virginia, which is both an honor and a privilege. Most Americans never see the Capitol City, let alone the microcosm of legal scholarship that is SCOTUS.  Those that do must wait in a long and frigid line to receive tickets for arguments; even then, many can only glimpse two minutes of the illustrious deliberations. My tickets are sure, my seats are good, and my time is whole.

                            Image via WikipediaPondering my initial reaction to the led me to a minor epiphany:  The inconvenience of grand experiences to a lawyer just hoping to get through the year undermines the effectiveness off that attorney's counsel as well as the stature of the profession as a whole. How many arguments do we let s
lip because they are too daring to fit within our narrow routine? How many opportunities do we ignore because the legwork involved is too intimidating to pursue?

As an attorney I hope to meet every new opportunity with the same excitement that brought me to law school in the first place. I may struggle to simply the tasks that any given week presents--but I hope to at least recognize and set out on the adventures presented by the law and the facts in any given case.
I hope to treat each new set of circumstances as an opportunity,
not a burden.