"1-L" Revisited: The Only Symposium I Have Ever Read Cover to Cover

What lawyer can forget the often traumatic first  year of  law school? In commemoration of the 35^th anniversary of Scott Turow’s “1-L,” the UMKC Law Review has published a series of short narratives in which 12 authors—almost all law profs—recount their experiences as students. Stephen Carter contributes an intriguing mini-mystery. Scott Turow has written the introduction. By the way, it was Turow who invented the term “1L,” which is now part of common parlance.

 All the stories are so fascinating that I hesitate to pick out particular ones as my favorites. Given the sociology of law professordom, it is unsurprising that  most of the contributors went to Harvard and  many of them  were different than the average law student of their time. You can find the symposium, “Law Stories: One-L Revisited” at 78 UMKC Law Review 1015 (2010).

 I must confess that I did not particularly like law school, though the University of Texas was a great fit for me. Yet, as one of my professors told me, being on the teaching side of the podium is a much different and better  experience than being on the student  side. He was right.

(ljs)