Let me admit one thing about me in law school: I was a grade hound, pure and simple. I am a very practical person, and so I am not afraid to admit that I shamelessly focused on grades. I wanted to end up at or near the top of the class. Why? I am not an egomaniac. I wasn’t looking for recognition. I wanted top grades for one reason: I understood the importance of grades for getting a good job. I didn’t have any illusions about it, and I still don’t.  Class rank mattered then, and it still does. Anyone that tells you differently is either clueless or a liar.

My background was similar to most law students reading this book when I applied for law school. I had a pretty good LSAT score, but while I had good undergrad grades they were nothing special. I had one major advantage over my classmates, however: I had a seer, a guru, a Socrates, whatever you want to call him. This friend had been through law school a few years before I went, but he was not enlisted in the “scare ‘em to death” law school graduate conspiracy.  In fact, while he had done very well in law school, he never became a lawyer and he was never enamored by lawyers. He did not have any stake in the game.

As a result, he had no interest in perpetuating the mythology of law school. Knowing this I bought him a couple beers one night and he told me all the secrets of the One L year. He de-glamorized it. He taught me its tricks. He forced my eyes wide open before I entered the cave. It was a good decision to buy him beer.

Consequently, when I entered the cave I had no illusions about the shadows on the wall. I knew what was really going on. My friend told me what Two Ls find out by struggling through the One L year. Of course if you know going into law school what Two Ls find out through a year of frustration, you will have the perspective you need to be successful without burning a year of grades figuring it out. And that is exactly what I did.

So that is the role I have for you: You’re the prisoner and I’m your liberator. You’re my Glaucon, and I am your Socrates. I am going to drag you into the light and explain what is on the wall. I am going to give you the secrets to the temple.

Socrates and Glaucon know better because they walk freely in the cave and can see both the prisoners and the puppets. They have a better purchase on reality because their perspective allows them to see things others cannot see.

From time to time a prisoner is released from the shackles. At first, he resists being released; the cave has been his home and is all he knows. He also refuses to look back at the fire, because it is too bright. It blinds him. But he is forced to take it in, for his own good. In doing so he realizes that the shadows are not real. For the first time he sees the puppets and he sees the fire.

This new reality is both astonishing and painful. Astonishing, because it is hard to believe. Painful, because it is a total disruption of the prisoner’s sense of reality. Then, he is forced to climb further, out of the cave altogether, into the daylight world he has never known. Now he sees things the way they really are. The cave, the puppets and the fire; all of these things he understands for the first time.

At the end of the allegory, Socrates and Glaucon consider the condition of the poor prisoner that has been released. Socrates asks an interesting question: Would any such prisoner want to return to that prior world of darkness and the lack of understanding of reality that came with it? No. He never would, they conclude. Understanding the truth is too important.

The One L year is a lot like Plato’s cave. It’s dark and mysterious. There are puppets and there is a fire. You are being shown a shadow world that doesn’t exist. Even so, it seems real because you simply don’t know anything else. And there is a chorus of voices from every direction reinforcing your distorted understanding of the world surrounding you.

At the end of nine months you will get escorted out of the One L cave and you will see the light. But, you will pay dearly to obtain your sight. You will think to yourself: “if only I had been aware of the world I was in, I could have handled it so much more effectively.” And that would be a true statement.

There is a reason Two Ls can go have a beer at three on a Tuesday, or walk into a class with confidence though they haven’t read the assignment. They are outside of the cave. They see the shadows and they have seen the fire.

My goal is to pull you out of the cave now, before you go in, to give you the perspective you would otherwise have only after you had gone through it. You need the insights that the freed prisoners have. My goal is to give them to you.

But hold on friends, before you get too worked up, let me let you in on a little secret. The Paper Chase was fiction. It didn’t really happen. None of the legendary nonsense actually takes place in law school. It’s a big fat lie.  Turow claims his book was a true account of his One L year at Harvard. Maybe it was, but I can assure you it has absolutely no relation to the ordinary life of a law student today.

Perjury is a crime, but lies about law school are encouraged. For in the end, they serve a noble purpose: to make you insane, and to make the ordinary One L class a total nut house. Again, the creed: it was horrible for us, and it is going to be horrible for you.

However untruthful it is, the hazing of One Ls is very effective. If you walk around a law school about five minutes, you will see two noticeably different groups of people. One group looks like a ward full of eighth grade ADHD patients: edgy, nervous, pacing around like crack addicts, spying on everyone in sight, jerking about in purposeless movements here and there, or huddled together in large groups like emperor penguins staving off the cold at the South Pole.

The other group? They are totally relaxed, even bored most of the time. They don’t seem to be bothered by anything. They wear flip flops and sweat pants to class. They meet people to drink beer at 3:00 on a Tuesday afternoon.

What’s the difference between the two groups? It is very simple. The first group are One Ls, who have no clue what is happening to them. The second group is everyone else, everyone who is in on the secret.

It doesn’t help matters that an informal hazing culture has also grown up around the first year of law school. The unwritten rule among the fraternity that have gone to law school is that we are expected not to disclose what it is really like. We are all sworn not to reveal the secrets of the Temple.  Instead, the approved message to future One Ls is simple and stark: law school is a mysterious, frightening, cruel experience. It was for us, and so it will be for you.

And so the legends are told in full color. We have all heard about the law student that left their wife during law school, or the law student whose wife left him. We are told of the many One Ls who have had nervous breakdowns in class, the heart attack victims, the grueling work reminiscent of The Deadliest Catch, the egoism and brutality of the professors, the weight gain and the hair loss. There is more mythology associated with the first year of law school than in book one of the The Lord of the Rings.

You may also have been unlucky enough to read Scott Turow’s book One L or seen the movie The Paper Chase before getting through the One L year.  Don’t get me wrong, it is not that Turow’s book is a bad one; not at all. It is a great book. The movie is a gem. I heartily recommend it to every Two L I know.

The problem with reading One L before law school is just that: you read it before going to law school, before actually finishing the One L year. Timing is everything. You won’t understand what I mean until your first year is over, but trust me, One L is a very different book if you read it before the first year than if you read it after.  Before you finish the One L year it is a tragedy; after your One L is over, it’s a laugh out loud comedy.

In a few days I will post about the “scare you to death” factor for the One L year, and what to do to avoid it.