Looking back on law school

Before I started law school, I wrote two posts about my goals: Things I want to do in law school and How I hope law school will change me. I thought at the end of school, I'd go back and reflect on my expectations and what had actually happened. But actually, I moved on pretty quickly. When I went to clean out my locker a few weeks after finishing school, I had forgotten the combination. So I'll just say: check and check.

OK, I do have two comments about things that turned out differently than I expected:

I thought law school would be hard and competitive and not much fun. Wrong.

I hope that I will be able to look back on law school and be proud of how hard I worked and what I accomplished, and that I will not work below my potential and regret it later.

I did achieve this goal. But when I look back and think of what I accomplished, I don't think about being on a journal or getting a prestigious job. I think of giving birth to and raising K, pumping in between classes, forming a community of parents at law school, while still keeping my grades up and writing papers and doing clinicals. I think what I accomplished is summed up by my official graduation picture: me in cap and gown, K on my hip brandishing a plastic gavel.