Atypicality

Summer break is officially over. Classes start this week and I spent last week slowly getting back into law school mode.

That meant, first of all, buying books. (I ended up with a nine-book-high stack and, happily, spent less than I expected). It also meant reading syllabi and starting on homework.

I have five classes, but I only started reading for one of them: History of the Common Law. The reading was an overview of the subject and it required a lot of Googleing of archaic words and Latin phrases. It also made me feel like I ought to know much more about the English royal line and the British judicial system than I do.

Still, the reading was entertaining. The authors noted, for example, that when the French came into Britain with William the Conqueror, they could not administer English laws in the French-style courts because “for one thing, they [the laws] were unintelligible” (Sketch*, 31). The authors also mentioned the influence of Italian jurisprudence, from which the English appropriated “some great maxims and a few more concrete rules” (Sketch, 42). I admire the English tendency to adopt maxims wherever they’re found.

Also, the reading taught me what an outlaw is, or was between 1066-1216 AD: if a person was told (usually by proclamation) to present himself before a county court, but failed to appear four times in a row, during the fifth court session he would be outlawed. That was not a great position to be in because the sentence for outlawry was death; and under the old law, it was the right and duty of “every true man” to carry out the sentence wherever the outlaw was found. (Sketch, 67-68.)

Meanwhile, the “benefit of the clergy” exempted anyone who could read (or who could fake it by memorizing the correct words) from capital punishment (Sketch, 73). This “benefit” morphed over the years from one used by clergy to one used by laymen, including laymen in Colonial Williamsburg. In the colony, the criminal could claim the benefit once (no reading required), meaning instead of being executed, he’d be branded on the hand. If he was later involved in another crime, he’d lose his life.

I also learned that the last heretic case was in 1612; but it was only much later in the Act of 1677 that the burning of heretics was declared illegal (Sketch, 144). And people could be charged with witchcraft in Britain until 1736 (Sketch, 158).

All of which helps me appreciate modern law a bit more.

Another sign of the approaching school year was filling out my graduation application. On the one hand, it was a very satisfying thing to do (a light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel sort of thing, even though I still have a third of the work left). On the other hand, calling it an “application” makes the graduation decision sound much more tenuous than it is, as though someone is going to look through all the applications and decide which are best and get to graduate, then keep the rest on file for future reference.

Also, there is an $85 fee for graduating, which feels a little harsh. Part of me wishes they’d just hide that fee in with the regular fees and tuition rather than show that three years of tuition was not enough for that little piece of paper, a gown, and a funny hat. But whatever.

The last sign of the approaching school year is an upswing in questions about what I intend to do after graduation. On this subject, I’m either slow or atypical or both. I don’t have a job yet (some of my classmates do), nor do I have a solid idea of what I want to do.

But I’ve never really felt like I fit into the law school mold. And I have time to work that out.

I’m okay with being atypical.

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* All internal references are to Maitland & Montague, A Sketch of English Legal History, G.P. Putnam’s Sons, New York and London 1915.