How I Wound up in Law School

Dana Goes to Law School

I chose to major in music at U.C.L.A. because I enjoyed singing and playing guitar. My high school guidance counselor apparently assumed that my future husband would support me. During my college years, though, I discovered that I was a lesbian, I wasn’t going to have a husband, and I would need a good career of my own. I also realized that I did not want to teach music and was not likely to earn a living as a performer.

So I needed to find myself a career. I took a series of career guidance tests, which showed that I would be able to do about anything I set my mind to, and that my interests were in “verbal, persuasive activities.” This made sense, since my love of reading had endowed me with a large vocabulary, but it didn’t narrow the field very much. My brother had been a year ahead of me in school, and I had usually followed and enjoyed his choices of electives. So I followed his grad school choice, too, and applied to several law schools in the U.C. system.

My first choice was Boalt Hall, which would return me to Berkeley, where I’d enjoyed living in the mid-60s. But Boalt was everybody’s first choice, and my music degree, albeit summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, got me only as far as their waiting list. I was accepted outright at U.C. Davis, which did not appeal, and at Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco, which was at least close to Berkeley. Its school year started a month before the other schools, and I had to pay a non-refundable acceptance deposit immediately, so I couldn’t wait for Boalt to decide. I prepared to move to San Francisco, where I knew nobody, so my excitement was tempered with a hefty dose of trepidation.

A friend drove me and my stuff to my new home, a tiny studio apartment in a building full of law students a few blocks from Hastings.

I was a devout Christian at the time, and made a point to attend the nearest church on the first Sunday. It was a Lutheran Church, not much different from the Presbyterian church I had belonged to in Los Angeles. I was made welcome, and soon found myself singing in the choir and exploring The City with other church-goers.

Law school was far more challenging than nearly any class I’d ever taken. The only courses I’d ever had trouble with were the upper-division English class I’d taken as a high school senior and college calculus. I had always been at or near the top of my class in school, but then so had all the other members of my law school class. I had to learn better ways of note-taking, because I had to be able to read and understand the notes to study them for the final and eventually for the bar exam. I got to know a few women in my law school class, and we formed a study group. Nevertheless, my nerves frayed, and I started having anxiety attacks.

I went to student health, and the doctor prescribed Valium. This was 1974 or 5, and a prescription for “mother’s little helper” was a badge of dishonorable weakness. Looking at the vial of pills shocked me into remembering my Christian faith. I remembered that God had brought me this far and was always with me. I had a good cry, thanked God for the reminder, and got my feet under me.

I graduated from law school with honors, passed the Bar Exam, and had a nice little career in legal publishing, from which I am now happily retired.