Good News

Yesterday I wrote the easiest letter to an employer a 1L ever gets to write. No agonizing over tone, spelling or grammar. I was too familiar with receiveing this kind of letter not to know how to say it.

Dear Judge,

Thank you for your recent interest in me. As you know, it's been a very competitive summer job season, and there are more qualified employers than I could ever possibly accept. I assure you it was a difficult decision. However, you are not alone in your disappointment, as I will reject many more judges, firms, and public interest organizations than I am able to allow to employ me. I wish you the best of luck in your future recruiting efforts.

Sincerely, I.A. Chadha

Alright, that's not exactly what you get to say, and it's not even true; I had nobody else to reject, but for the first time in this job search, I felt a little bit in control of the situation.

So this summer I'll be working here. You can't tell from the picture, but the building is currently undergoing renovations, and most judges have relocated across the street. When I was there interviewing, it had an eery locked-in-the-marble-museum-after-closing sort of feel to it, and it was a little quiet for my tastes, but after all the rejection, I would've happily manned the metal detector.

It wasn't even the chambers that I got along best with, and when the clerk offered me the position, I asked if I could have some time to think about it. He hadn't really considered it, but yeah, I could have some time, would I "need more than an hour?" What's the saying? One job in the hand or something? Maybe that's something else... anyway, I took it. No matter how you look at it, it's better than my last job, even without the apron and all of the shame.