Time Waits for Nothing

Intro

Entering a profession where time is both literally and figuratively of the essence, I have realized that how successful certain aspects of my life will be is dependent on how wisely I use my time. Time places constraints on how lawyers and people in society operate. How one comes to understand time will prove instrumental as to whether it will be viewed as enabling or inhibiting. In Light of My Law School Experience In analyzing my law school experience, I can’t help but notice how my conception of time has changed. In college, asking a professor for an extension on a paper was something that was openly talked about without shame. If a student didn’t believe that her work would not be of quality, she would not be forced to turn it in. There was one time when I didn’t turn in a term paper until two months after the initial deadline, and received an A in the class. That’s not to say that I didn’t respect the deadlines that my professor had set for me. Rather I came to appreciate the pursuit of a particular piece of knowledge and the level of comprehension necessary to create a thoughtful analysis. Although I loved the ways in which my college experience allowed me to grow personally and professionally as an individual, it did not prepare me for Columbia Law School. Columbia has shown me repeatedly that taking one’s time is not the way of the world; there is a time to take in information and a time frame to use that information. Those in law school who can learn and apply this way of thinking will succeed while those who do not adapt quickly enough will not succeed.

What does One Gain and Lose

I have not only seen the power of time on people who practice law, but also on those who will subsequently be impacted by the legal decisions. Within the law, it can control who becomes successful within the profession and how successful clients will be in dealing with their legal matters. In Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, Gladwell discussed how the arrival of certain law firms coincided with the trends in the legal professions. Specifically, he analyzed how Jewish law firms in New York were able to prosper in an environment that had previously excluded them. Since Jewish Lawyers had been excluded from the legal profession, they developed skills in one area of the law that other law firms weren’t interested in handling. AS the times changed the skills that they acquired were seen as being something valuable. This is not to say that hard work is not necessary to obtain success, but that success is contingent on that hard work matching up with the right temporal circumstances. This summer, working at a non-profit has shown me how determinative time can be. The Family Center provides those who have been impacted by severe illnesses legal advice on matters such as advance directives. Even though I am placed in a position of power, I feel that I really do not possess a lot of power. Advance directives are a case in point; reaching someone at a particular time means the difference between having someone’s final wishes known before their death and not having their wishes known. • Housing o I have seen how timing has impacted the types of housing that people can obtain o Section 8 was discontinued/ vouchers that are set to help people to transition These circumstances are effectively captured in Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bronx by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc? . Leblanc follows the young mother Coco as she lives an impoverished life and searches for government assistance that will aid her and her young family. Unfortunately, b ecause of the ways in which the welfare programs are being adjusted, Coco falls short or misses out on oppurtuntites that would have been available to her in a different lifetime. Although this book follows the lives of people in the Bronx in the mid 1980s through the mid 1990’s, it is still useful in looking at the ways in which timing impacts the access that certain members of society have to resources.

Difficulty with Accepting Time Limitations

Although time does create a sense of order, it also creates hard boundaries. It can be an obstacle to accomplishing a goal. It would be difficult to think of a world where time and deadlines didn’t drive people to adequately prepare for something, but I find it troubling to think of how things unfold because of how time impacts it. The way in which lawyers can transition from being on the outskirts of the legal profession to be central to its continuation, the way in which Leblanc frames Coco’s struggles in Random family as a result of the change in welfare reform…Time maintains order but it also creates idiosyncrasies that create unfairness or undue hardship.

-- By JenniferAnderson - 14 July 2012

This is not a finished product