The New Importance of Clothes

For me, the most disappointing thing about law school is how I'm physically aging. This is one area of life where I believe it is actually mentally healthier to stay in a state of denial, so I won't say much more about it. Still, as I get older I am beginning to see even more the importance of clothes in society.

Earlier this week, a friend who works in the state legislature invited me to lunch up at the Capitol. Real estate lobbyists hosted the meal, and it was open the public. I asked him if how I was dressed was okay- blue jeans and a polo shirt with my shirt tail out. He said it was fine. I took him up on the offer and walked five minutes east on Pensacola Street from the law school to the Capitol.

When I arrived, however, I realized that I would have been much more comfortable in a suit. Everyone else was in professional attire. While I tried to smile at them, they did not smile back at me the way they would have if I had been in a suit. I could almost read their minds: "He's not one of us. This is just some man off the street looking for a free lunch."

I don't hold it against my friend for inviting me at all. He's younger than I am. I now understand that when you're young and you dress down, people don't care as much. He could have pulled off jeans and a loose polo. But not me. Not anymore. This is a threshold I've crossed since coming to law school.

When I'm among people in professional attire, I now need to be in professional attire, too. I am a "man," now. No one calls me "kid" anymore, the way the salesmen out on the car lot in Las Vegas did when I worked with them five years ago. A "man" needs to already be successful and look like he's successful. A "kid" still has success waiting for him in the years ahead. I can't pull off the Gap or Old Navy look in a crowd of professionally dressed people anymore- if I ever could pull it off.

I've noticed this change from comments people have made to me this year, too. One day earlier this semester when I came to school in a suit, a law school administrator looked at me and said, "You don't look like a student. You look like you are already a lawyer, years beyond school."

"I'm not sure if that is a good thing or not," I replied.

This past week, one of the librarians stopped me and told me that she had decided I was a chameleon. "When you are in a suit," she said, "I think that a lawyer has just walked into the library. But today you are not in lawyer clothes. You are in jeans and you look like a different person."

Of course I would like to remain forever young, but this change I am going through has some benefits if I learn how to play it right- especially when I am wearing a suit...

It is officially exam season. I have to hit the books even harder. This will probably be my last entry until after graduation.

Until Next Time,

Nathan Marshburn

Adjusting My Attitude

Almost every day now, someone asks me what it feels like to "almost be done" with law school.

From my sales experience, I know that I need to come up with a better answer than what I've been saying.

The smile on the face of the person asking me that question inevitably changes to a frown of confusion once I've given my long-winded answer.

My answer, more or less, goes like this:

"Really, it doesn't feel like I'm almost done. It just feels like one more hurdle that I have to clear in this whole process. I still have to take the final exams and pass the final exams. I'll go through the graduation ceremony not 100% sure that I've actually graduated. Then I have to spend about two and a half months getting ready for the bar exam while I wait for my degree to be officially conferred. At the end of July, I'll take the bar exam. Then I have to wait for results, which won't be released until mid or late September. Somewhere along the line, I've got to find a job. Assuming everything goes right in all this, I still won't become a lawyer for another six months from now- as one firm neatly pointed out to me in a recent job interview. So really, it does not feel like I'm almost done."

A poor first year student who innocently asked me the question and then listened to my rant, sheepishly responded, "Well...Good luck with that process," and hustled off.

While all of the above is true, I know my attitude is what counts. After that 1L student hurried away from me, an interview I'd seen with Joe Montana came to mind.

Joe Montana, a former NFL player for the San Francisco 49ers and the Kansas City Chiefs, is the greatest quarterback whom I personally have ever seen play the game.

This interview that came to mind took place a few days before he was to be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. A reporter asked him what it felt like.

I can't remember Montana's exact quote, but it was to the effect that being inducted into the Hall felt like "the end." It felt like the last event before they piled the dirt on his coffin.

The reporter gave him the same look that the 1L and the other students have given me after my response to their questions about what it feels like to almost be done with law school.

By the time of Montana's actual enshrinement speech, however, he had adjusted his attitude. Here is an excerpt of what he said, taken from http://www.profootballhof.com:

"The Hall of Fame is a tremendous, tremendous honor. I had a very difficult time with it in the beginning cause I don’t think I was looking at it in the proper perspective. I saw the Hall of Fame as an ending point. I mentioned to a couple people that in some ways I felt like, wow I'm only 44-years-old, I feel like I’m in my grave, in my coffin, alive, and they’re putting, throwing dirt on me, and I can feel it, and I’m trying to get out. And it wasn’t until this weekend, these past three days, these gentlemen behind me [his fellow inductees], spending the time with them, that I think I really got the true meaning of what this is all about...I‘ve now seen the light, that this is not an ending point, this is a beginning point. This is the beginning of the rest of my life, post-career, with a new team. And take a look at these guys, what a team it is."

While graduating from law school is of course not the same thing as being inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, this upcoming graduation ceremony will be the most significant achievement in my own life, thus far.

Yesterday, I went to a house party with some of my fellow law school students. At one point, as we all sat around a TV watching the NCAA Final Four games, I looked at each student and thought about how lucky I am to be here. Four or five years ago, I would have been elated to know that such a scene was in my future. I am surrounded by very intelligent and talented people at FSU Law, people who will go far in society.

Being invited to study with such a group at such an institution, to graduate with them, means that I have an obligation to be positive. I have an obligation to bring hope to people who come into contact with me.

So, it feels nice to "almost be done." The graduation ceremony will be the culmination of a lot of hard work, and a gateway into what I hope will be a bright future. There will always be more hurdles to clear, but I am looking forward to the challenge and the rewards that come from clearing them.

Until Next Time,

Nathan Marshburn