Law 120 Reflection Paper #1

Jolina Pauline T. Tuazon 02-21356 1E

Topic: What does it mean to teach law in the grand manner and to make great lawyers? Gray, But More White Than Black One of the first things I learned in law school is the concept of black letter law. As I understood it, it is law that is well-settled and undisputed and thus cannot be subject to any other interpretation. The subject came up in one of our discussions on social justice: how it sometimes becomes necessary to deviate from an accepted interpretation of the law in order to give justice where it is due.

Even with only a semester in law school, it has already become clear to me that the law is not perfect. Neither is the legal system, and more so--if not above all--the people operating within it. Given such legal environment, the black and white application of the law at all times and in all places becomes impossible.

By the resulting gray areas I do not mean ambiguities that allow lawyers to circumvent the law for selfish gain. Rather, I refer to the kind of gray that affords justice to those who otherwise would not get it when dealt with the harsh hand of the law alone. The kind of gray that provides an even keel to victims of social imbalances. The kind of gray that allows lawyers to stand up for injustice, even when they are up against the very men who are supposed to uphold and protect the law.

This I believe is what is meant by teaching law in the grand manner: to give law students an understanding of how the law may not always be black and white, but it must always be a means to achieve justice. Making great lawyers on the other hand means molding future members of the bar who are not only learned in the law and skilled in its application but who also know how to make the law an effective tool of justice even when the law is gray.

The problem with gray areas, however, is it makes everything else vulnerable to ambiguity. Once the lines are blurred, nothing is clear, and anything can be justified. Gray areas, thus, are sources of temptation for the lawyer. With their existence, much lies in the lawyer's hands in the interpretation of what is legal and what is not. But this is where a grand teaching of the law comes in: it instills in the lawyer the true spirit of the law as a means to serve justice. Following the popular connotation of black as evil and white as good, the great lawyer thus sees more white than black in every gray.

Reading the perfunctory materials, it is easy for us students of law to detach ourselves from what we read in the classroom, to look at the letters as they are printed on paper. But it is the grand teaching of the law that trains the student's eye to look beyond the letter of the law into its spirit. To see beyond the facts of a given case and to connect the often wide gap between theory and reality. And it is the great lawyer who knows how to strike a balance between the law as it is written in statutes and jurisprudence, and the law as it is implemented in our society.

In this sense, lawyers must be great because law is a critical profession. Medicine and business may arguably be as equally encompassing, but it is the law that is most concerned with the problems of rights and justice. It is in the lawyers' hands to determine what is right and just, to settle disputes, to ensure social order and stability. Such a profession necessarily exacts from its men and women the highest standards, setting for them the highest expectations. The rationale is easy to see. As Lord Belingbroke remarked, the profession of the law, in its nature the noblest and most beneficial to mankind, is in its abuse and abasement the most sordid and pernicious. Because of the high stakes, it becomes incumbent upon the lawyer to not only be technically competent but morally upright as well as socially committed. These, however, are virtues best sown during one's schooling. And it is the education which teaches the law as noble and beneficial to society that produces lawyers who will refrain from the abuse and misuse of the law.

This is not to say that lawyers in order to be great must devote their lives to public service. Neither does this mean boxing lawyers into one field, such as alternative law or free legal aid. Just as every man is free to pursue his own professional interest, so must be every lawyer. After all, it is not one's chosen field that determines one's greatness. The great lawyer is one within whom the spirit of the law lives wherever he chooses to apply it, whether in private practice, on the bench, in the academe, or even in non-legal professions. Whether as litigator, as judge, or as a law professor, he is a great lawyer who is not only an instrument of the law but an instrument of justice.

As a freshman, I admit to having fallen into the trap of idealizing the profession of law more than once or twice. And after a semester of eye-openers, I have realized that the law is far from idyllic and that the life of the lawyer is not as exciting as it is portrayed on TV and films. I know that over the course of law school I will continue to learn more hard truths and unlearn more myths. But right now, what I am sure of is this: a grand education is that which makes it a duty for students of law to commit to become great lawyers. And early as now, I am grateful and proud to have made that commitment.