Brush With the Law The True Story of Law School Today at Harvard and Stanford

Just how tough are the country's most prestigious law schools? Most alumni would answer with stories of humiliating "Socratic dialogue failures" in the classroom and all-night, caffeine-fueled cram sessions. Until now, the traditional concept of the law-school experience was the one presented in Scott Turow's One-L, published in 1977, a dark description of his first year at Harvard Law School. Twenty-four years later things have definitely changed. Turow's book became the accepted primer-and warning-for aspiring law students, giving them a glimpse of what awaited: grueling nonstop study, brutally competitive classes, endless research, and unfathomable terminology. It described a draconian prison and endless work in the company of equally obsessive, desperate fellow students. Yet, sidestepping terror and intimidation, law students (and new authors) Robert Byrnes and Jaime Marquart entered highly prestigious law schools, did things their own way, earned law degrees, and were hired by a Los Angeles law,firm, turning Turow's vision upside down. In their parallel narratives-two twisted, hilarious, blighted, and glorious coming-of-age stories-Byrnes and Marquart explain how they managed to graduate while spending most of their time in the pursuit of pleasure. Byrnes went to Stanford to reinvent himself-after a false start in politics he wanted to explore the life of the mind. It took him virtually no time to discover that the law was neither particularly intriguing nor particularly challenging. He could play around the clock. When Byrnes wasn't biking he was getting drunk and smoking crack. Finding himself when he discovered the right woman, Byrnes finally moved to Los Angelesduring his third year and flew upstate only to take final exams. Born and raised in a small town in Texas, Marquart had never lived outside the state before arriving at Harvard. Amazed at his own good luck, he approached scByrnes, Robert is the author of 'Brush With the Law The True Story of Law School Today at Harvard and Stanford', published 2002 under ISBN 9781580631785 and ISBN 1580631789.