“I love school. I’m a huge nerd. I love and accept that about myself,” Valerie Sorenson confided across her kitchen table. “I’m not doing this for the grades specifically. Whatever. I just want to know it.”
‘This’ happens to be a three-year stint at the Georgetown Law Center, ranked among the top fifteen law programs nationally, just behind the likes of Harvard, Yale, Stanford and a smattering of other elite institutions. Many of Georgetown’s undergraduate students head off to law school each year, imbued with vague notions of what the three years of school they face will be like. Along with the 1500 other aspiring attorneys that crowd the libraries and classrooms of the Georgetown Law Center, Sorenson is looking to join the legions of legal-eagles. All that stands in her way are three years of lectures on torts, contracts and procedure, long hours perfecting the art of legal writing and a bit of healthy competition with her classmates for prestigious internships. It may not be nasty, brutish and short, but woe to the meek in spirit—the study of law is for hearty souls.
In between hurried bites of bran cereal, Sorenson explained her pre-law school years.
“I graduated from Bryn Mawr,” she said. “But I lived and studied at Penn for three years and my favorite professor is at Haverford. I basically went to Pennhavomawr, as my parents lovingly call it.”
Coming from Sorenson, a petite blond bundle of motion, this complicated collegiate experience makes sense—more is more. Neatly turned-out in leggings, a tunic and killer high-heel boots, Sorenson is ready to take on the day as she sits in her efficiency apartment in Gewirz Student Center, a dorm on the law center campus built to house first-year students. Home to a little under 300 1L’s (as first-years are universally known), the facility is just one aspect of Georgetown Law that sets it apart from comparable institutions where on-campus housing is practically unheard of. T. Alexander Aleinikoff, Dean of the Law Center, prefers to call the dorms “residences” and said that they were constructed to offer affordable housing and to provide a strong sense of community.
Sorenson’s small room is homey, with a bed, tasteful green drapes and an array of pictures which feature herself and Playboy Bunnies at the Playboy Mansion. In many ways she is the typical law student. In many she is not.
For starters, Sorenson is twenty-four, and while most of her classmates headed straight from undergraduate institutions to graduate study, she decided that time off from school was in order.
“I packed a car and like, five hundred bucks, and I just waitressed in Malibu until I got, like, a real job,” she said. “The first week I almost ran Christian Slater over with my car.”
The diversity of experience within the student body is one of Georgetown’s strengths. In keeping with this idea, the Law Center offers a wide variety of clubs and activities, including a theater group as an artistic outlet for the throngs of blossoming lawyers.
“There is no typical Georgetown law student,” Aleinikoff said.
Sorenson is proudly self-sufficient, having worked as everything from a nanny to a lifeguard, from an SAT and LSAT teacher to a bartender. Despite her love for California sunshine and an occasional bash at Heff’s place, though, law school was never far from her mind.
“I’ve had an interest in being an attorney since 7th grade,” she admitted. “My dad made me take one of those career tests and the top one was ‘attorney.’ It kind of stuck with me.”
This focus on the future propelled Sorenson through her academic career. She did mock trial as a youngster and chose to attend Bryn Mawr, despite a full-ride offer to Seton Hall (her father’s alma mater) because the woman’s school boasted a 100 percent acceptance rate to law school. Forward-thinking even as a teenager, Sorenson consulted with the admissions office at Columbia Law School before making her college decision.
“I asked the people at admissions at Columbia Law School would it be better for me to get a 3.0 from Bryn Mawyr or a 4.0 from Seton Hall, and they said, ‘Are you kidding me? Go to Bryn Mawr!’”
Despite her enthusiasm for the prospect of a future in law, Sorenson is the first to admit that her road to D.C. and attorney-dom had a few bumps along the way.
“I interned here over the summer and I was, like, ‘Oh my God, panty hose and suits, I can’t do this.’ So I rebelled, and the next summer I worked at Chanel doing fashion PR.”
Professor Nina Pillard has just begun her morning lecture to a class of 150 1Ls.
“I’m going to do a certain amount of talking, so try to stay awake,” she told the class.
From the back of the tired classroom, all I can see are the backs of heads, barrettes and baseball caps. No one is surfing the net—yet. Sorenson pulls her loose hair into a ponytail, hunches over her desk and proceeds to scribble copious notes. The class collectively straightens in their seats as the case at hand is read off. Game time.
Pillard talks at a steady clip, interrupted periodically by questions. One girl in a purple sweater seems particularly inquisitive; she’s what Sorenson later termed a “gunner,” the eager beaver who always talks, even when she’s not “on call.” (Law professors use a cold-call system to ensure that all students are tested on their knowledge of the reading.) Another man wearing a t-shirt with “Hop-a-long” emblazoned on the back whispers to his buddy and pumps his hand in the air at some mention of former Justice Brennan, who seems to be a rock star of sorts among the law school set—he is mentioned in nearly every professor’s lecture. There is a constant patter of computer keys, like raindrops hitting an aluminum roof, and occasional honks permeate the quiet as cars make their way to and from the nearby Capitol building.
Most students are dressed in drab colors and casual clothes–not many cashmere shift-dresses or tailored blazers here. The garments are built for comfort, not speed, and the room is overwhelmingly filled with brunettes (there are a number without hair all together) – by my count, there are only nine blondes in the whole hall.
Later, over lunch, I asked Sorenson about the stereotypes of law school students. In her stilettos and skin-tight pants, she is far from what most would envision a studious Georgetown Law student to look like and she says many people point to the similarities between herself and Elle Woods, the fictional Harvard law student portrayed by Reese Witherspoon in Legally Blond.
“I am what I am, I guess,” she said. “It’s nice to know I have some sort of categorization instead of people not knowing me at all.”
When asked if she ever feels defensive about her image, Sorenson just shrugged.
“People make comments, especially about my study habits. I just learn differently. I’m pretty smart, I like to think. People like to pass judgment. I take it with a grain of salt.”
Class is out, and the central lobby of McDonough Hall, the main classroom building on campus, bears a remarkable similarity to the halls of a high school at lunch time—only a significant portion of the student body is balding. Sorenson, lugging a hefty ‘Georgetown Law’ tote filled with books, stops to talk to several classmates, including Steve Grothouse (LAW ’10), dressed in a suit and on his way back from a Federalist Society event. Despite his buttoned-up appearance, Grothouse insists that the law school stereotypes are exaggerated. He seems out to prove that there’s more to first-year life than memo-writing and developing nervous facial ticks.
“I live in the 1L party house,” he said. “We’re having one on Monday.”
Before he leaves, Sorenson tries to extract a promise from Grothouse that he will attend an ‘80s-themed party for 1Ls that she’s helping organize that night at The Third Edition. With the impending finals season and a memo—the law school equivalent of a term paper—due the following Monday, Sorenson, who is the social chair of the Student Ambassadors group, thinks the event will provide a nice break. Can he be there, she asks?
“Hopefully,” Grothouse sheepishly replies as he fades into the mass of jabbering students.
Sorenson, as it turns out, was once a party-planner in Santa Monica. She said that the social life at the law school isn’t half bad, at least on days when memo-writing doesn’t paralyze the entire 1L class. In addition to enjoying “Kegs on the Quad Wednesdays” and Bar Review on Thursday (which involves drinking in various bars, not studying), students go to house parties in the Capitol Hill area or nearby spots, like Kelly’s Irish Times and The Billy Goat.
“We don’t go to the Tombs,” she said with a laugh at the thought of mingling with undergrads.
With the close quarters and beer-soaked Wednesday nights, I wondered if the law school breeds thrilling romance as well as killer attorneys? Not really, according to Sorenson, who maintained that most people learned their lessons from life as an undergrad. Back in the dorm, Sorenson and classmates Tali Shousterman (LAW ‘10) and Eka Akpakip (LAW ‘10) relaxed as Akpakip, a frequent competitor in beauty pageants, tried on costumes for Valerie’s `80s bar event. In between jokes about girls who come to school to get their MRS degree, the women discuss the hookup culture of Georgetown Law, along with the status of a variety of their classmates’ serious long-term relationships and engagement announcements. Shousterman stood in the kitchen, crunching on granola while she laid out the dating scene.
“When you live in a dorm situation with people your age, it’s inevitable sometimes,” she said. “But people keep it a lot more on the DL, too.”
“Plus,” Sorenson added, “I don’t want to date boys who are 22.”
Later in the afternoon Sorenson headed to her Property and Time lecture, a class which would be known in most law schools simply as Property. Her first year academic program is structured differently than typical first year programs because Sorenson is part of Georgetown’s Curriculum B. Developed in 1991 by a number of Georgetown faculty members, Curriculum B is an alternative method of teaching the standard first year courses, and it focuses on making the law more relevant and applicable to students and their lives by giving the history and philosophy behind the development of the law. Sorenson said that although she thinks Curriculum B involves more reading and class time than standard courses, it’s worth the effort.
“My impression in all these other courses of law you take as a first year student, it’s very ‘This is the law,’” she explained. “I would probably hang myself.”
The typical workload for students includes two to three classes from Monday to Thursay, with perhaps one more lecture on Fridays. And though Law Center students do like to have their fun, the reading load is difficult and 1Ls must adjust to writing in legalese.
Innovations like Curriculum B, coupled with Georgetown’s solid international law reputation made Sorenson come to Georgetown over places like Northwestern, a program ranked higher than Georgetown by U.S. News and World Report.
“At the end of the day, Georgetown was far superior, to the point where I question the U.S. News rankings,” she said.
Sorenson believes that the only factor holding Georgetown Law back in the rankings is the school’s limited financial power compared to other elite institutions. She pointed to the fact that many Georgetown grads go into lower-paying careers in public service or humanitarian law and are not as able to give back to their alma mater.
“Because we’re good people, we kind of get shafted.”
By 5 p.m., evening shadows were falling across the clock tower that guards the edge of the small campus while students made their way to the state-of-the-art fitness center to unwind or grab coffee in the serene glass and marble interior of the student center. Inside the Edward Bennett Williams Law Library, the third largest in the country, students studied at long mahogany tables lit by table lamps, while others tread the plush red carpet silently as they made their way into the impressive reading room. Up in Gewirz, Sorenson and her fellow first years were busily typing out memos, memorizing case studies and cataloguing procedures and precedents—tasks at times grueling and joyless. To what end?
A future of lawyer jokes, petty legal battles and billable hours aside, the three hard years of legal study are seen by those at Georgetown Law as a noble labor, a crucial endeavor. One has only to look to the exterior of the library to see evidence of that fact. Carved into the white stone of the building, is one simple phrase:
“Law is but the means – Justice is the end.”
