Law Schools

Tales From An Unsuspecting T14 1L: Law School Professors

Every law school has some of these over-the-top professorial personalities. Do they seem familiar to you?

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I dedicate this break that I am taking between readings to the people who make it all possible: my law professors.

Now having taught a few classes since my introductory article, my law professors have made quite the impression. Like good trash TV, they each bring predictable but over-the-top personalities into the room. This week, I distill and spill the tea on each personality. Here is what it is like for you to take a class with each of my professors.

Professor N. R. Gee

This is the professor who wakes you up in the morning. She starts the first class with “unlike your other classes. . .” and sucks you in with her unnecessary enthusiasm about two or three words in the only case she assigned that week.

Your heart races, not in fear of a cold call but because she paces around the room. One moment she is lunging toward a student who is desperately trying to flip to the right page to answer her question. The next moment, she is leaping toward the board.

She has energy when none of us do. And you find everyone claiming this is their favorite teacher simply because they were unable to get distracted.

Professor Riley Bull

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This is the professor who reminds you about grades, in a good way. Where you may walk out of Professor N. R. Gee’s class feeling unsure of what information was important, Professor Riley Bull only teaches what is on the exam.

“This is what you need to know. . .” starts and ends each class. She assigns the least amount of reading out of all your classes because she does not need more than one or two cases to make her point. Your lecture notes fit into one page. Her office hours have logical lengths and times. It is surprising.

She is reliable where no professor thinks to be. But everyone will find her boring until they realize she was the easiest professor to study for.

Professor Faye Moss

This is the professor with more than two paragraphs in their Wikipedia page. If you are like me, then you did not know about her or care about her before you ended up in her class. Yet, half of your class seemed to know about that one book she wrote or those cases she worked on.

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Class feels like a talk show because she is naturally used to commanding attention. Every three minutes, there is a joke. You then laugh with everyone else before you can tell if it is a good joke. You are not being cold called, but rather interviewed by your school’s Oprah.

It’s because she is famous. That’s all the reason we need.

Unfortunately, you end the week remembering only what your fellow classmates said and nothing she said. Everyone raises their hand to look smart in front of her. At this point, you secretly believe she plans an extra 20 minutes to walk anywhere because she knows a professor or student will try to talk to her along the way.

Professor Lee Brall

Believe me, the subject matter of this class does not matter. We are going to talk about gender, race, class, “the ways in which X does Y,” and the like. Every breath she takes feels like she could give sources upon request. And she has.

If you did not finish the reading, this professor’s agenda can be easily derailed after questioning the “obvious consequences and policy implications of this opinion.” Not that I have tried.

It is not that she is liberal (most of my professors are). It’s that her politics is one of the two takeaways you get from her every class. That and the fact that old white men wrote most of these opinions.

Professor E. Go

I saved the best for last. This professor is frankly full of herself and she knows it. She also knows she is not one’s favorite professor and does not care. She will still be here when you graduate.

The first class was, of course, about her own projects and unwavering awesomeness. From then on, classes start with a healthy exposure to her elitist saviorism and end with a shocking revelation of just how rich and privileged some top law school professors are. Her stories have been so outlandish, it would reveal her identity immediately to even say something as ostensibly vague as the number of homes she owns. Furthermore, her ego mandates that she namedrops every institution and person with whom she has associated. She has even namedropped Professor Faye Moss.

You leave the class wondering if teaching occurred. Predicting whether you need to read before the next class is like wondering whether you will need ears before the next Lauryn Hill concert. You know to expect nothing and be thankful for anything. To this day, you still do not know when Professor E. Go’s office hours are.

But do not psychoanalyze her too much. I have done that work for you. After careful notetaking, I have concluded she is a great lawyer who knows how to teach. This class is just a lower priority and the self-proclaimed awesomeness of her life seems more entertaining to her than class. Maybe it is.

I love all my professors though. Like I said in my last article, they are all excited we are here. That is good enough for me.

Earl Grey (not his real name) is currently a 1L at a T14 law school. You can reach him by email at HotTeaForEveryone@gmail.com.

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