Professional Responsibility Exam

Before you graduate, when you have almost completed law school, you take a test called the "Professional Responsibility Exam." This test asks you questions about ethics and morality. If your answers reveal that you have the slightest trace of a conscience remaining, you are scheduled for surgery. During the surgery they remove the particular lobe of the brain that is causing the problem. Although this procedure may seem harsh, you should be very grateful. Without it you would be completely incapable of functioning as a normal lawyer. Perhaps you have noticed that many young lawyers wear sporty sweatbands on their heads when they play racquetball. They do this to hide the scar.

Before you take the bar and become a full-fledged lawyer, you must do one more thing. You need to ask your law school dean to write a letter recommending you for admission to the bar. The dean's time is very limited, since he teaches a full three hours out of a forty-hour week.


There is an old story about what it's like to be a dean. The outgoing dean explains to the new dean that, if trouble arises, sage advice is contained in three envelopes in the desk. A year later a serious problem arises. The dean opens the first envelope. The note says, "Stall." The dean does, and the problem eventually goes away. A year later another serious problem arises. The dean opens the second envelope. The note says, "Appoint a committee." The dean does, and the committee solves the problem. A year later the worst problem of all arises. The dean can't see how he can possibly solve it. He opens the third envelope. The note says, "Make three envelopes."

Once a high school principal asked a university president to supply a graduation speaker and he made it clear that he wanted "nothing lower than a dean." The university president responded, "Sir, there is nothing lower than a dean."

Since he is so busy, your dean will probably send a recommendation letter that looks like this:

Dear Sir or Madam:

I have been asked to write a letter recommending for admission to the state bar. Since I write a lot of these letters, I trust you will not object to the format below. I have checked the appropriate blanks. In my judgment, this person:

Integrity

• Is as pure as mountain spring water.
  
  
• Is as pure as mountain spring water 100 miles downstream.
  
  
• Are you familiar with feedlot runoff?

Intelligence

• Is as brilliant as Einstein, but has a better hairdresser.
  
  
• Meets the implied warranty of merchantability: is fit for the ordinary purposes for which lawyers are used.
  
  
• Received an F-minus in my class. Giving this person an F would have distorted the grading curve beyond the range of current mathematical theory.

Knowledge

• Understands the Rule against Perpetuities, and has explained it to me several times.
  
  
• Knows what "unalienated relatedness" means.
  
  
• Realizes now that no other success can compensate for being a total failure.

Aspirations

• Desires world peace, equal justice, and an end to hunger and poverty. Also wants a private jet and a vacation home in Switzerland.
  
  
• Therefore, I do do not recommend this person for admission to the state bar.

Since your dean took the time from his crushing schedule to write this letter for you, he must not be such a bad person after all. In fact, from now on he will make you one of his personal pen pals. Even though he didn't have two seconds for you in law school, you will suddenly become his close, first-name-basis, bosom buddy forever. Throughout your entire mortal existence, no matter where your career takes you, through all the ups and downs of life, your dean will regularly write you thoughtful and personally computer-generated letters-asking you for money. You just can't put a price on a friendship like that. He, however, does have a ballpark figure in mind.

Finally graduation day comes. You and your classmates put on medieval black robes and balance what appear to be square Frisbees on your heads. You march regally in front of a throng of proud and (after paying tuition for three years) impecunious spouses, parents, jealous siblings, small children, and household pets. You then listen to a couple of hours of stirring exhortations to be ethical and give service throughout your life. By now, of course, this is deeply ingrained in your psyche, since you heard it all once before, three years ago, on the first day of law school.

By law, all graduation speakers are required to use certain phrases in their speech. It's most efficient if they're combined in one sentence, like: "You, the rising generation, stand at the crossroads ["threshold" is equally acceptable in some states], poised for flight into the great unknown, with the past as prologue, with the future in your hands, and with the hope of America upon you." Naturally, any reference in these speeches to earning a living is strictly forbidden.

You might enjoy these talks, if it weren't for the fact that you're sitting in the direct sunlight in a robe made of thermal-insulated black cloth. You are beginning to smell like a baked potato.

You reflect back upon the three years of law school: the time spent as a terrified first-year student trying not to flunk out, as a terrified second-year student trying to find a summer clerkship, and as a terrified third-year student trying to find a job. Oh, those halcyon days! They say that life never gets better than this.

Then the dean gives some awards to a few smarty-pants know-it-all students who, you can just tell, are way too intellectual to ever-be successful practitioners. Lastly, the dean begins reading the names of the graduates. He correctly pronounces the name of Michael Brown-Momrath-Outgrabe-Okefenokee-Endoplasmic-Rcticulum-Stratford-on-Avon, Jr. Of course, he mispronounces your name. But it's over, and you're thrilled. You leave law school with mixed emotions: joy and rapture.