Law School Taught Me the Answer to Most Questions — ‘It Depends'

I went to law school at night while I was a special education teacher during the day. In law school, it became a running joke how many times a student or professor would answer a question: “it depends.”

Since then, “it depends” has been my answer to many things in life. I used to think in a lot more black and white certainties, but now, I realize a fair amount of outcomes are uncertain. This goes especially for future outcomes when there is little certainty. If I am cheering for a sports team, I have no clue who is going to win, no matter what the sportsbooks say. As a result, I have certain rituals and superstitions to, in my mind, improve my team’s chances of winning.

The fact that I am deeply superstitious seems strange to a lot of people. I have a Bachelor’s, Master’s, and Juris Doctorate as an attorney. This education, as well as a very analytical and overthinking mind, might make people think I am purely driven by data and rational thinking.

But no — I am not. I have a lot of rituals that I believe maximize future outcomes, like not checking the score of a game when I want a sports team to win. I want to do anything I can to not jinx the future. Again, I know it’s not rational, but I am a religious and spiritual person, and surrendering to what I can’t control and the mystic forces that I believe God controls just helps me let go and stop freaking out when I am anxious.

I can’t tell how many answers in law school I started to preface with “likely” when I was confident about an answer and “may” when I was not. A criminal law professor told us very early on that this made our answers stronger — when we projected less certainty for a very nuanced fact pattern or situation, then we were capturing how multiple factors could tilt the scale either way.

Plus, our analysis for why someone could be found guilty of first degree murder or larceny was more important than whether we got the answer right or wrong — after all, different juries could decide the same facts and come to two entirely different verdicts under the same law.

I used to have a lot of hot takes and project more certainty, particularly when it came to politics or sports. As someone on the left of the political spectrum, I still certainly believe there can be systemic factors that give one person more barriers and obstacles to succeeding. One person can have more of a chance of succeeding and going to college than another due to factors like income and zip code.

As a former teacher in Baltimore for six years, I saw vastly different academic outcomes for students from similar socioeconomic circumstances. Since I taught special education, it depended on so many things — the impact of a disability on learning, the student’s attitude and drive, how much homework was done at home, etc. There was never one factor that made or broke their education, and it was impossible to predict at the beginning of the year how a student would perform by the end of the year.

This summer, I took the bar exam this summer and passed by 47 points, a score high enough to practice in any of the 41 jurisdictions that use the Uniform Bar Exam. When I was waiting on my results for the bar exam, I would express to friends and family that I was nervous that I might fail, nervous about the worst-case scenario. They would often counter with a very well-intentioned sentiment that I would pass easily, given my good grades in law school.

But I could not say that. I could not think that. Was I confident leaving the exam? Yes, particularly after the first day when it was all essays. But could I say that I was absolutely, 100% certain I passed? No — I could not be 100% certain about anything. But beyond that, I thought having that certainty and projecting it would be a form of jinxing myself into failing and unwarranted hubris when I really did not know. Of course, I rationally knew that how I did was how I did, and the three months of waiting for results was not going to change any of that.

I grew very, very superstitious about not being too sure or too certain about passing. I could say, “I’m 95% certain I passed, but I can’t be sure.” But I felt that hubris and arrogance would lead to disaster — plus, those are just not the values I try to live by.

Again, I did pass easily. I am not sure whether my superstitious ritual or thoughts had anything to do with it. But I am happy that I let myself be unsure and uncertain.

. . .

Outside of being a lawyer, I am also a big I have also changed the podcasts I listen to for one of my favorite hobbies, fantasy football. Fantasy football is a game of virtual teams of real NFL players who put up points in receiving yards, rushing yards, and touchdowns. Many analysts brand themselves in very certain terms and hot takes of what absolutely would happen with a particular player and how their output would be on a particular week, with all caps headlines. There is an audience for that certainty and a lot of humor involved, but since fantasy football analysts are in the business of trying to predict the future, these analysts are wrong very, very often. I used to follow these analysts because I craved this certainty, and their swagger would eliminate a lot of my decision fatigue and agonizing.

But recently, I started following fantasy football analysts who have a lot more nuance, who say “there’s a good chance player X will do Y, but I can’t say for sure.” These are analysts who admit when they are wrong and admit they are just trying to play probabilities given a player’s past performance, factors like matchup, weather, or team situation. They never say “this player will definitely have 10 receptions and two touchdowns.” Because of this overall shift in trying to just gain a slight edge over the rest of the industry rather than projecting certainty and swagger, I find these analysts more credible (even if they are sometimes a little more boring as a result).

In another area of my life, as a marathon runner, I feel differently on different days. Some days I feel terrible. Others, I feel on top of the world — it depends, but the same logic applies. Sometimes, how I feel on a run vacillates tremendously even within the time of the run.

I’m not saying there are no right answers out there. In all of the math classes I took, there were right answers, and when I studied neuroscience and chemistry in my undergraduate degree, there were definitely right answers in all my organic chemistry, physical chemistry, biochemistry, and organometallic chemistry classes as well.

But one place where there weren’t right answers was working in the lab — the lab required an open mind, a willingness to keep trying and exploring even when results were not good. And that is what I wish I did better when I worked in an organic chemistry lab — persevering in my experiments even when the result was not what I wanted. I struggled deeply with not being able to be the best scientist and the ambiguity of exploring the unknown — that’s probably part of the reason why I quit.

. . .

Being an “it depends” guy might make me a lot more boring of a person since I’m always expressing uncertainty and saying I’m unsure. And as a newly licensed attorney, I am also going to be a litigator. I wonder if it’s an issue that I won’t always project a ton of confidence and bluster. I wonder if there’s a place for it, or if I need to develop a switch to become someone people largely wouldn’t recognize in the courtroom. However, some people and TV lawyers might project a high degree of certainty and bluster — I tend to stand out in legal circles with my level of preparation and embrace of nuance.

Yes, every time I email a more senior attorney, my answer is littered with “likely” or “some courts have said X, but other courts have held Y.” I think a lot of people will get frustrated with that. I think there will come a point where someone will ask, “well, what do you think?”

But this mindset of acknowledging uncertainty and embracing it has done wonders for my thinking and willingness to take risks. I think more in terms of probabilities of outcomes for each decision I make.

Even if there’s a small probability of a desired outcome, like going the extra mile at work to make a better impression (when in reality everyone is too focused on how busy they are to probably notice), I will still swing and do something I might not like, because I no longer think “there’s no value in this” and instead think “there might be some value in this.” It’s not that I don’t get nervous before a big marathon as a runner or big meeting or deadline, but that I am more prepared for a range of outcomes rather than one

There are some bright lines out there — murdering people is wrong. But in most matters, I think there needs to be more room in this world for nuance, uncertainty, and the gray area rather than certainty and bluster. And I think law school taught me that, and it’s a lesson I wish I had learned sooner.

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This post was previously published on The Partnered Pen.

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