“Maybe next time don’t bring your coffee on here.” He nodded at me before closing the door in my face.
I turned toward campus. It wasn’t even 8am and I had definitely just hit strike three.
It took me a few minutes to remember which direction the building was where the meeting was held.
I felt the sides of the shoes cut into my feet. Only a few more steps and I could sit. I had to keep going despite the heat, sweat, and smell of coffee rising from the ground up. By the time I found the conference room, there was standing-room only. Holy hell. I wasn’t expecting it to be packed. Or to be in a room with this many other Practioners-in-Residence. There had to be twenty-five of us packed into a room meant for a meeting of ten people. My stomach sank. Until now, I had no idea the pool of competition would be this large.
I was wedged between a girl in a navy blazer and the wall. I smiled weakly at her as I tried to retrieve a notepad from my bag. My elbow banged into the chair railing.
“Can you see?” she asked.
She was extremely tall. I looked down and noticed she had on flats.
“I’m fine.” As long as I had room to scribble notes, I could handle it. That and as long as my feet didn’t give out. It was possible they had lost feeling.
The mumbling stopped as soon as one of the program directors closed the door, sealing us in the claustrophobic space. I tried to take a slow steady breath.
“Good morning. Glad to see so many faces here today.”
He took his time to make eye contact with each of us. I recognized him as one of the people from my interview panel three months ago. His goatee was peppered and he had a long drawn face.
“Some of you are here to practice law. Some of you are here to learn how to teach law.” He cleared his throat. “Some of you are here to do some good for those under-served in our community. Me? I’m here for all of that. I’m the director. If we haven’t met, I’m Max Harrison. This is my twentieth year in the Clinical Program. I oversee all ten clinics. I pick up clients when I can and I also teach a history of law class twice a week. So, I don’t have a lot of free time.” He chuckled.
I shuffled to the right, trying to see past the girl in front of me.
“You should all have your clinic assignments. There are ten clinics, but this year we only had open slots in Taxation, Immigrant Justice, Intellectual Law, International Human Rights, and Women and Law. We did our best to sort you based on experience and personal requests, but it may not have worked out for everyone.
“The positions are for one year. All of this was covered in your interview process, but now that you’re here I want to remind you—you aren’t faculty and you aren’t staff. You are here as a resident of this program. At the end of the year there will be an opportunity to apply for a faculty position, but you can see the competition is going to be fierce.”
This was the part where everyone wanted to size up the person next to them. The tall girl blocked my view from most of the cohorts in the program. I kept my back against the wall and my head down.
I had no way to assess my experience against the people in the room. We were all supposed to be the best in our graduating law classes. We all came from prestigious practices. We all kicked ass in our interviews. None of us would be here otherwise. I didn’t know how they would weed us out.
I thought about the irony of standing here pinned to the wall, preparing once again to compete. I thought that part of law was behind me.
The room was tense. The energy buzzed with sharp focus. We might be here to do some good in the world, but underneath it all each person in the room wanted to win. Each one of us wanted to be the only one standing when this process ended.
Max smiled. “I would like to add that even if things don’t work out for you here at the end of the program, we have had many of our law residents go on to receive full-tenure track positions at other law institutions. And some of them even find that doing pro-bono work is sometimes more rewarding than they could have imagined. This year is going to teach you more than you could have thought possible. I think I’ll finish on that note.”
The tall girl scribbled something on her notepad. I didn’t have anything on mine.
Professor Harrison wrapped up his introduction. “You can break and head to your respective clinics. I’m sure we’ll have a chance to get to know each other over the next two semesters. Good luck.”
Max cut for the door and walked out of the room before anyone could bombard him with questions.
The tall girl turned to me. “I’m Trish.”
I smiled. “Elliot. Nice to meet you.”
“What clinic did you get?” she asked.
“I’m in the women’s clinic,” I responded. “How about you?”
“Taxation law. I worked for three years at my uncle’s firm in Atlanta.”
“Oh.” I didn’t know what to say. There was nothing stimulating to me about accounting or the law that went with it. Since I was pre-law women’s issues had always been a part of my studies.
“Maybe we’ll run into each other some time,” she mused.