Lady Justice Must be Blind
Important Please Read - General Disclaimer: I do not own Rurouni Kenshin. I am not an attorney and cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies in the law and/or procedure. I am writing this for purely entertainment purposes, though I may at times use real life cases, this is not meant to be educational in any way or form. This is for fun.
Takagi Tokio, was feeling irrationally angry and emotional and it had nothing to do with a certain time of the month, thank you very much. No, these emotions were born out of a certain time of the year. Finals. More specifically, law school finals. At this point in the semester the words from her textbooks only seemed to mock her. However, Takagi Tokio much preferred the mocking words of civil procedure to the mocking words of upper classman Saitou Hajime.
Saitou Hajime, a third year law student (3L), was currently sitting at the other end of the law school library with his group of friends. Tokio hated him. Well, okay, to be fair she did not hate him and if she had to be totally honest with herself she would admit that he deserved his school rank. A little voice in her head added that he was also quite handsome. Tokio mentally shook her head to rid herself of that particular thought – there was no need to go there. No, what Tokio hated was the ease with which Saitou seemed to handle law school.
Tokio's first encounter with the 3L had not been pleasant. She had met him during his office hours to discuss her memo; she could still hear him berating her writing and the way he made her poor draft bleed with red ink.
"Your sentences are too long, use less words. Make your point and move on." Saitou crossed out an entire section of her draft. "If you turn crap like this in you won't make it past this semester and the Judges will laugh your ass out of court," then he smirked and added mockingly, "not that you'd make it to court."
Tokio had been too appalled to respond. He was a teaching assistant, he couldn't say those things … or could he? Psh, what did he know. Determined to prove him wrong she made the mistake of turning in her draft without any of his corrections. Her professor had not been impressed.
That particular event had happened at the beginning of the semester and now finals were only two weeks away. The law library was filled with first year students frantically cramming. Among those first years were the second years casually and carelessly scrolling through pinterest and chatting on facebook. Then there were the 3Ls, who exuded an air of "couldn't-care-less." Saitou seemed to be the personification of that 3L attitude.
Tokio, on the other hand, was struggling with a part time job and a full course load. At that moment, Saitou turned towards her (he probably felt the waves of annoyance Tokio was casting in his direction) and sent her one of his special smirks. Dazed at first, Tokio realized then that she had been glaring at him for the whole time during her inner struggle! Embarrassed, she quickly threw her head back into her book, throwing in some frantic highlighting just for good measure.
She hoped she had played off her lapse in attention… and then she heard it. A silent chuckle. Damn it. Refusing to look up, Tokio sighed and forced herself to continue studying civil procedure.
For the umpteenth time that semester Tokio wondered what had possessed her to leave a stable job for the demoralizing experience that law school had turned out to be. With that thought Tokio let her head fall in her textbook.
"It can only get better, right?"
Notes:
1. Law school is three years long. So first year law students are not referred to as freshman but as1Ls. Second years are 2Ls and third years are 3Ls.
2. I apologize if anyone believes that Tokio is a little whiney but she is going through finals. In law school you generally only have one test and it is given at the end of the semester. In other words, that one test determines your grade. It can be a stressful experience, especially for 1Ls.
3. Final note, most law schools have some sort of legal writing class for 1Ls. Legal writing teaches 1Ls how to write legal memos, appellate briefs, citations and so forth. This is the class that Saitou is TAing for.