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| Dear
Professor Rosenstein DEAR
PROFESSOR ROSENSTEIN: I am looking ahead with a considerable
degree of mixed feelings to graduation next week. While it would be
a relief to have this three-year and six-digit odyssey behind me,
I am a bit apprehensive of the next turns of the road: the bar exam
and, finally, actual law practice. I do feel that the Like many of my classmates who desired
to pursue such a path, I was thankfully successful in landing a coveted
associate position at a prominent law firm. I appreciate that the
prestige and reputation of the From growing up watching rerun episodes
of Perry Mason, spending a couple of summers
at firms doing primarily litigation work, and, perhaps most significantly,
being told throughout my life that I can be difficult to get along
with, I plan to be a litigator. Nevertheless, I thought it useful
to be exposed to a broad variety of legal disciplines, which is why
I picked for my last four credits your Introductory Taxation course.
Given that purpose, I did think it prudent to take the class on a
pass-fail basis. I concede and apologize for the fact
that I inordinately focused my efforts this semester on the courses
and activities that most directly related to the work I plan to do,
in particular the moot court competition and the law clinic. And I
also confess that I did allocate my energies and time more to those
courses that I was talking for a letter grade, although I was convinced
that, after seven years of college and grad school, I knew what I
needed to do and what kind of exam essays I needed to write to comfortably
earn that critical “P”. All of this had the unfortunate result of
my not always being prepared for your class, and for actually missing
class on far too many occasions. What I obviously regret most was missing
your last week of classes, including the class in which you apparently
advised that the final exam, which was placed before me over an hour
ago and remains untouched, would be not an essay exam, but a computation
exam requiring specific numerical calculations with particular results. I have often heard people speak or write
of time standing still, but I have never experienced or fully understood
that concept until this moment. But I am experiencing and understanding
it incredibly well now. As I look around this massive exam room (temporarily
renamed during testing periods to emphasize it is no longer a classroom
where knowledge could be obtained) with its cathedral-like ceilings
and windows, I see scores of my classmates scribbling furiously with
their originally sharpened pencils and pounding relentlessly the keys
of their trusty calculators. Mine is the only head that is not looking
down. Knowing that passing this course would
provide the last credits I needed for what I believed to be the technicality
of graduation, I had prepared for it with no less (and arguably even
a bit more) rigor than I had for other classes I have taken with such
a grading option. I was prepared to discuss eloquently the nature
of tax law, and the positive and critical public and social policies
that often (but not always, regrettably) underlie it. For each of
the concepts you taught, I had come up with what I thought were compelling
examples of the arguments and implications on both sides, and airtight
analysis to support the conclusions I had reached about them. But these efforts are of no moment now.
No examples, reasoning, or creativity can guide my pen (in my ignorance,
I didn’t even bring a pencil) to generate the supportive calculations
and magical final numbers you seek. I am at sea, with (pursuant to
your direction, also apparently issued during those last classes,
and abruptly enforced upon my arrival in this room) no treatise, outline
(original or commercial), or notebook with which to paddle to safety. I hear nothing except the sound of my
own breathing. And so I am doing the only thing I can
do: I am filling my exam book with this desperate, and knowingly futile,
plea for help. I have no illusions that you will help
me. Preparation is (usually) rewarded with success, and failure to
prepare adequately is (usually) met with the array of sanctions designed
to deter such behavior from occurring again in those that are properly
fearful. I cannot begin to imagine (although
I of course am) how my family, and my friends, will react to my getting
a failing grade and not graduating. I’ve recklessly let those who
care about me down Ń- those who have sacrificed to give me opportunities
that they were not given, those who encouraged me and who looked forward
to rejoicing in my having succeeded. And even if they are charitable,
I have no delusions that my law firm (or any law firm) would be. How could I have been so stupid? I think
of the fallen trapeze artist in the Judy Collins song, “Send In The
Clowns,” and ask myself how I could have lost my balance this late
in my academic career, literally when the bar is in sight. Finally, I do thank you for reading
this, if indeed you have (surely many in your position would have
stopped and slapped on the “F” pages ago). I’m not sure I could have
made it through these four hours without writing something,
without being able to concentrate on something other than trying to
work up the courage to leave this room early, perhaps four hours early. I suspect that this letter (or whatever
it is; it surely is not the answers to the questions you have asked)
at this point may be more for me as an exercise in self-flagellation
and self-analysis than it will be for you in making any decision other
than the expected one. But at least my exam booklet is not blank.
I can for the moment join my classmates who are now rising to hand
in their calculation-filled volumes, all of whom appear to be smiling,
presumably through some combination of glee and relief. I obviously
feel neither. I feel only emptiness. Sincerely yours, DEAR
MR. BENNETT: Obviously, as a teacher, I am dismayed
that you did not devote the necessary efforts to my class. No professor
wants to acknowledge that a student has been a failure in his or her
course, because, if even to a small degree, it means the teacher has
also failed. But students do fail, and teachers do issue failing grades,
no matter how reluctantly. I am not completely unsympathetic to
your situation. I have to confess that, even to this day, and although
there is no personal historical basis for it, I occasionally (and
usually during particularly stressful periods) have the recurrent
and still horrific nightmare in which I find myself in a final exam
for which I am totally unprepared. Perhaps all lawyers do. As you may or may not know, this was
also my last class at the When I first took this position, my
wife, a very charitable and forgiving person, asked me to make her
a promise: that I would never fail a student. And, frankly, before
this semester, there was never really a situation where I had to test
the resolve of that oath. But obviously there is now. But there are many oaths in my life.
Another is the oath to maintain the standards and principles upon
which this institution and others like it are built, and by which
students as well as faculty strive to conform their behavior. I take
these requirements very seriously, as we should. Thus, I cannot simply and offhandedly
say, “Oh, what the heck!” But perhaps the analysis should not stop
there. I do believe you have done a degree
of preparation for this exam, although obviously you have not done
enough. In terms of its relation to the correct responses, your answer
booklet unavoidably warrants a failing grade. But you have taken this opportunity
to assess and discuss a variety of other matters. Although they bear
no reasonable relation to Introductory Taxation, they (albeit belatedly)
reflect your recognition and understanding of the need for proper
preparation and diligence, the responsibilities inherent when others
depend upon you, and the value of balancing out competing demands.
You echo feelings of despair that countless clients who find themselves
in apparently hopeless situations experience, until they are comforted
by the support of knowledgeable and reliable counsel on and at their
side. And you present your sentiments in a reasoned and compelling
way. I have always felt that those who want
to be litigators should, as part of their training, have their own
deposition taken, so they can feel firsthand the terror a first-time
witness experiences. Those who plan to be criminal defense counsel
should spend a few hours being “processed” in the criminal justice
system, so that they can gain a modicum of understanding of what their
clients are going through. As you may be aware, during my career
I have, in addition to this course, also taught a variety of small-group
practical and practice-oriented seminars, on such subjects as Legal
Negotiation, Legal Ethics, Lawyers and Their Clients, Equity, and
Remedies. It could be argued that you have demonstrated that you have
learned much of what I have attempted to convey in these seminars,
although of course you have technically never taken them. And so,
with perhaps a generous helping of logical extrapolation, I can justify
viewing your exam as meeting the requirements by which I could have
issued a passing grade in a couple of those two-credit courses. So, following that reasoning, I believe
I can, in good conscience, essentially transfer these credits and
pass you in this class. But please do not consider this a free
ride. I strongly hope you will appreciate it as one who suffers a
sudden but thankfully transitory chest pain heeds it as a fortuitous
warning sign, and does everything in his power to prevent himself
from experiencing such terror again. Your clients and your colleagues
will be relying upon you, and you cannot let them, or yourself, down
again You cite songs; I cite movies. I find
myself watching a lot of them lately, and what comes to mind is the
scene in Wall Street where Hal Holbrook’s fatherly character advises the about-to-be-arrested
young hotshot played by Charlie Sheen: “Man looks in the abyss, there’s
nothing staring back at him. At that moment, man finds his character.
And that is what keeps him out of the abyss.” Stay out of the abyss. And perhaps down the road, when you
are a senior partner or a general counsel (or even a law professor),
and a young underling messes up, you will give him or her similar
heartfelt advice and a similar second chance. That’s all I wanted to say. Please read
these words carefully (as I suspect you have), and perhaps read them
a second time. Then find a nice open space away from other combustible
materials and burn this booklet, so that the only record of its contents
will be in your and my memory. And never forget them. Have a great career, and congratulations
on your upcoming graduation. Sincerely yours, LAWRENCE SAVELL is counsel at
Chadbourne & Parke LLP in |
