Today was the first day of "sitting" for the Illinois Bar. This is perhaps the last academic "test" that many of my classmates will ever have to take. Some reflections.

First, I thank that lovely person who was praying for me and asked others to pray. Providence was there in how the day unfolded, and above all I have God to thank for making the day and the preparation leading up to it a lot less difficult than it could have been.

Second, it strikes me that these questions, which are, unlike law school examination questions, designed to mirror what lawyers actually encounter in practice, usually have one objectively correct answer, and it is our job to find it. This is encouraging, for it suggests that the practice of law is not just an awful shouting match where whoever speaks loudest or most suavely wins, but is more basically governed by human reason. That means that in applying our reason to the manifold types of cases that come before us for advice or determination, we lawyers can render a real and valuable service to our fellow human beings, not just dramatic acts of parasitism (although that still happens too often).

Third, and relatedly, I realize that many of what used to be my fears of practicing law for a living are in fact misplaced. Everyone sitting in the Wydham conference room with me is a fellow human being, reasonable and sympathetic. The potential vices lie not in the practice of law, but in doing so with too much greed, vanity, etc., or with too little social consciousness. Mainstream legal education unfortunately has little to say about such virtues and vices, meaning that the general consumerism of wider society filters heavily into the law culture. Be that as it may, there is cause both for reasonable pride and realistic humility as I enter this historic professsion.

A New Day . . .

. . . and something of a new start for me as I write my first-ever blog posting. I'm not new to sharing thoughts over the Internet, as in college I happened to be active in an email discussion group frequently disoursing on religion and politics. Yet posting my latest musings in an altogether public forum is now indeed a first, and I'm not sure how far or where it will go. My secular profession requires an ability to write and discourse publically, and with my law degree I've become confident in being able to say or write pithily whatever comes to my mind. What now to think about, and what now to share? Men and women of far greater learning and leisure than I already dominate this sphere of action, so what do I really have to contribute anyway? The point, quite obviously, is not to answer these questions but to live and write in such a way that they remain vital.