Unfortunately, Pi day is not the main focus of this post. The real topic will hopefully be a little more interesting as it has to do with the phenomenon sports fans around the world refer to as March Madness. While it could be argued that Pi day is the unofficial kick-off to March Madness because it usually falls around Championship week, I have to show some discipline and stray from the topic. So, with a heavy heart, I want to turn your attention to a comparison that may have eluded you for your entire life to this point: NCAA March Madness compared/contrasted to Law School. Now, I know what you're saying and you're wrong; there are similarities, you just have to look in the right places and that's why you've turned here, to me, an expert in setting aside actual responsibilities in order to shed light on subjects you never really cared about. So, without further ado, let's start the show!
Now, I could go on for pages with similarities but I've decided, because I have a social life, to limit myself to just a few of the major ones which you'll find below.
The tournament is often called the "second season" in college basketball, a name I have bestowed upon "finals" in law school. You see, I like to consider myself the equivalent of a tournament "darkhorse" or "underdog." So what if I didn't win all the games in the regular season? (Editor's note: we all know I like to use analogies in my writing. For instance, "winning games"="reading torts/crim/Con/property" and "regular season"="first 2/3 of the semester". These will continue throughout the post so keep a lookout. Anyway, sorry for the interruption - time to contiune...) The beauty of college basketball - and it's distant cousin: legal education - is that it's not necessarily about consistency. Some teams will eek their way into the Big Dance thanks to an incredible series of fortunate breaks - this is more analogous to having your rich uncle call to get you into the school, not anything you've done once you're there. Regardless, the underdogs almost ALWAYS rely on some sort of ridiculous prayer of a shot at the end of regulation against a higher-seeded team in order to advance - that's the story of my legal education: underperforming for 39 minutes, 56 seconds, then pulling it out in the end.
Law school has the same categories as the tournament when it comes to performing. Aside from the aforementioned (sorry, Craig Smith) "underdog", there are, of course, those teams/students who are commonly referred to as "favorites", "frontrunners", or in law school, "gunners." Gunners may end up winning March Madness with their talent, depth, and actual understanding of the issues on exams but plenty of assholes have won NCAA championships and gone on to do very little as professionals, and vice versa. Really, would you rather be Christian Laettner with his incredible college basketball pedigree, excellent education, and 2 NCAA Championships or Kobe Bryant with no formal education since high school, 3 NBA Championships, and a $21 million contract with the Lakers? Seriously, right? With all due respect to gunners, I'd rather struggle through the regular season, doing just enough to get by and then amp it up in the last month in time to make the Elite 8. This way, the "scouts" (BigLaw) notice my positives without having to pay attention to my bad performances, also known as cold calls.
Finally, regardless of what happens, two things are always true: good coaching/teaching usually prevails and there will be upsets. If I learned anything from my first round of finals - most notably, Civ Pro - these would have been the two lessons. No doubt I had a very well thought of professor - akin to Tommy Amaker - but despite all of the credentials and charisma, there was just a general lack of experience at the highest level and together, we fell short. Compare this to a coach...errr...professor in the same division - Civ Pro - who has over 100 years of experience on the subject, an extensive collection of well-worn denim, and who literally wrote the book; this legal genius would no doubt be compared to a Coach K or Roy-boy Williams and always gets the best performances from her students. Every once in a while an underdog TEAM advances deeper than expected but you rarely see a terrible coach/professor produce the proteges of the highest caliber.
The other lesson is that regardless of who you are or how good you think you are, you will face an upset sometime during March Madness. Think about it like this: the average law student faces 6 instances of the March Madness equivalent (since I like to consider myself "above average", I hope to have a couple extra...). That's roughly 24 "games" where you could possibly be upset. Even the mighty fall in the tournament on a yearly basis and, to be honest, no one is shocked the next day because, hell, that's just the nature of the tournament. Well, it's the same for law school and that's why no one was shocked when a certain blogger missed 7 consecutive lay-ups down the stretch against Team Civ Pro and pulled the B-. There are, of course, some exceptions to this rule - a legal "dream team" if you will, comprised of 9 players recruited from some of the best teams around the country.
Ok, well, as I sit here, UNC was just "upset" by Florida State in the ACC tournament and, as predicted, Psycho-T retarded his way to underachieving, all of which corroborates my theory that anything can happen in March. Maybe he and the Tar-fails will be able to make things a little more interesting in the Big Dance, but hopefully not. Anywho, it's now time to go watch Duke ride the rollercoaster so I'll leave you with one last thought that just came to mind before I go. There is one major difference between life at VULS this year and the NCAA tournament. In the history of the 64/65 team NCAA tournament, a #1 seeded team has never fallen to a 16 seed. The same cannot be said this year in the hallowed walls of Vandy.
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