Philosophizing can be fun.  As undergrads, perhaps through a philosophy class or maybe just during a night out, we often entertain far-fetched ideas and discuss them at length just for the fun of it (“What if our whole universe is just a single atom in another universe?” seemed to be a favorite with some of my friends).  Such talks not only provide entertaining social exchanges but also mind-expanding exercise, enhancing both the flavor and substance of a good liberal arts education.

In law school, those discussions still happen.  But there are major differences.  Because law is like philosophy that matters.

That line always gets the biggest laugh at the “Introduction to Law School” talks that we host, but it does so because it’s true.

Let’s discuss why.  Arguing about Thomas More’s Utopia (free text at Project Gutenburg) or Plato’s Republic (text at Gutenburg) can be challenging and interesting, but it won’t get anyone out of prison or regain custody of a child.  Law does.  And when a medical malpractice victim has suffered a traumatic injury at the hands of an incompetent hospital staff member, she doesn’t call a philosopher.  She calls a lawyer.

Law is where a society embodies its highest philosophical notions regarding truth, justice, freedom, choice and human dignity into tools that have hard-core, real-world consequences.  Law calls upon all the intellectual powers that go into a philosophical discussion, but it doesn’t end there.  It matters.

Accordingly, during law school, students are confronted with issues that require each individual to stake out some sort of philosophical basis for his or her point of view.  Issues like abortion, capital punishment, same-sex marriage, drug use.  Both in and out of the classroom, the idea wars get hotly debated.  And that debate is all the hotter this time around,  because—unlike that night out with the college boys—this time the full significance of those ideas is being brought to bear on the lives of actual human beings.  A real person with a real name and a real face will live or die; a couple will marry or not; a child will or will not be born—all these human lives will be forever and fundamentally altered  on the basis of which idea carries the day. 

And that’s another reason why law school is cool.

Experiencing a great novel (I’d recommend Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell) for the first time can be very exciting.  Each plot twist fuels a need to turn the page and find out what happens next. 

But, once a person has had that first-time experience, he or she can never fully recapture the thrill by re-reading the same book, because all those invisible strings that tied the plot together have now been revealed.  The mystery, the illusion, the naïvete have been stripped away.

One reason why law school is cool is its inherent process of similarly stripping away illusions and revealing how things really work.  The invisible strings that attach to each and every person are made plain, never to be re-concealed to those who have been initiated.

Constitutional rights are a good example.  Before law school, one’s next-door neighbor appears to be just a little old lady who likes to grow tomatoes and to play with her three cats.  But after law school, her appearance has changed:  she wears giant plates of armor and carries a sword and a shield wherever she goes!  The law student asks himself or herself, “How did I never notice all that stuff before?”

That heavy, shining, formerly-invisible armor includes a right to free speech that was designed by some of the brightest thinkers of the last millennium (e.g., Jefferson, Madison); was embodied in a document that describes the longest-running, still-active governmental structure on the planet; has been defended by millions of soldiers, guns, tanks and planes; and is excercised every day of the current presidential campaign or the current global warming debate.

Other such formerly-invisible armor includes a right to be free from abuse by police; to carry a gun; to trial by jury; and so on.  These mechanisms–just abstract and theoretical to the student entering law school–have become palpable, real, obvious and downright glaring to the student exiting law school.  He or she can never go back to the way things were, back to viewing his neighbor in the same way, any more than he or she can re-read Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets for the first time.

And that’s one thing that makes law school cool.

Over the coming weeks, this blog will address some of the topics that frequently concern students who are considering law school.  First topic will be, “Some of the things that make law school cool.”

Until then, Happy Fourth of July!