Law Students Corner
| Publication year | 2008 |
| Pages | 09 |
| Citation | Vol. 77 No. 6 Pg. 09 |
A Kansas Legal Education: An Education Harvard Law Never Received
By Danny Moskowitz, University of Kansas School of Law
Have a seat and the recruiting coordinator will be right with you." Yet again, I found myself at an other callback interview for a large East Coast law firm. Beads of perspiration were flowing down my face, and the usual pre-interview jitters were apparent. After what seemed to be a lengthy wait, the hiring partner emerged. I can only assume that he came from more important business than interviewing an ambitious, though very nervous, second-year law student.
During the early minutes of the interview, we dispensed with the requisite introductory small talk. Then, an acute silence descended upon the room. In order to break the silence, I lobbed a few facts about the firm, which I had spent hours learning when I should have been reading for class, but still, my interviewer said little. He seemed impervious to flattery.
My mind quickly began racing to my every flaw. Had he seen how poorly I performed in Professor Hecker's Business Association course? Or, worse yet, was he able to see how tight my suit was from the weight I had put on due to those late nights studying at Green Hall? I began to curse myself for trading in my gym membership for countless hornbooks and a mediocre grade point average. Even worse, I began to think that my family was right —— I should have pursued a career in medicine. Why had I defied five generations of doctors in my family to become a lawyer? "Well, this is it," I thought, "I might as well look into bankruptcy law and see if I could set a new legal precedent on how to discharge student loans." For it was clear only two minutes into the interview: I was not going to get this job.
Then the partner shifted his gaze from my resume to me and stated more than asked: "I presume you are originally from Kansas."
"No, Sir, I am not."
"Well, you must have married a lady from Kansas."
Again, I replied in the negative, and I informed him that I was not even married, but if he knew of any nice Jewish girls in the area, then he should please give them my name. "A little joke," I thought, "Come on. Give me something."
At that moment, I noticed he was agitated, and then he finally asked me the question that characterized all of my interviews, from New Orleans to Philadelphia: "What the hell is a nice...
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