Twenty Five Reasons Not to Go to Law School

Reason One

Reason Number One not to go to law school: there's no course in getting coffee.

"Mel, I have to go. I'm going into work."

"Why?"

"Because I have a job."

"But you have a girlfriend," she whined, and I could picture her pouting on the other line.

"Whom I'll see when I get home," I reminded her. "Bye."

"You suck."

"I've been told. Goodbye."

She sighed. "Bye."

Sometimes Melissa was great, but all the time Melissa was a complete ditz. Stunningly pretty, but absolutely vapid. I had a type, and it was so dangerous to my mental health. I always went for the hollow girls, rather than those with substance, and could not for my life figure out why.

Trying to hang up the phone I'd been forced to get since I passed the bar exam, I walked into the glass door of my firm. Technology confused the hell out of me, but everyone always told me that I needed a phone with all the bells and whistles, one that could do my taxes if need be, if I wanted to make it anywhere as an attorney. I will now include, for your reading pleasure, a hidden bonus reason not to go to law school: your smart phone may end up smarter than you.

"Cassandra," a radio announcer voice called as I walked down my firm's hallway, thirty minutes early. "Come here."

The voice belonged to Louis Stepp, senior partner, the owner's son, and, in a manner of speaking, my boss. Having been with Marlowe and Stepp only about six months, it wasn't that I was expecting any sort of corporate honors or titles right off the bat; rather, I'd always been the kind of person who hated having to answer to anybody. Senior partner or otherwise.

"Good morning, Mr. Stepp," I greeted formally, appearing in the threshold of his corner office. His was the kind I'd always pictured myself in on long nights studying for the LSAT or the bar exam. Some day, I'd always told myself, I'll have my own office. With a door, and a big picture window, and my name on a plaque on the desk.

"I told you, Cass, you can call me Louis," he requested casually, motioning for me to enter. I hated when he suggested that I call him by his first name, because I knew he didn't see us as being on the same plane, work-wise. He did see himself as my superior; simultaneously, he was seeking a casual relationship that existed outside the firm, and that wasn't something I was going looking for. Louis Stepp was the lawyer that you picture with a briefcase in one hand and a pitchfork in the other - smooth talking, slimy, money hungry.

"Okay," I said, notably not replying, "Okay, Louis."

"You're early," he noted.

I looked at the clock, just screaming promote me. "As always," I reminded him, a verbal nudge in the rib.

"That's great," he said. "I need you to run across the street and get me a coffee."

My face fell. "Don't you have an intern for that?" I asked, an imprudent business move.

He smiled, nonetheless. "My intern doesn't have your punctuality skills."

"It's a blessing and a curse," I muttered.

"You would make the best secretary," he mused.

I felt fire begin in my lungs, and I wanted to spit it out, but I couldn't. Maintaining my strength, all I said was, "I'm a lawyer."

"You're too pretty to be a lawyer."

"Excuse me?"

"Look at you," he went on, arguing his point like a good lawyer would. "Your heels are taller than you, and even your suit is Chanel." He pronounced it like "channel." I cringed.