Week One: In which the Fellowship of the Certificate is formed.

(That's a bit dramatic, but we are, after all, a small group of strangers from different backgrounds thrown together to work toward the same goal, so it seemed apropos.)

The students

When I say we're a small group, I'm not kidding: there are seven of us. No wonder MUPP wanted to "allow more time for people to register." Many fewer and they wouldn't have covered our instructors' salaries. Since I don't want to get sued (and this would be the crowd that would do it), I'll not name names, but rather use generalities in describing our happy band. To wit:

Two of us are taking paralegal classes as "law school lite," and intend to go on to the real thing in the future.

Two of us have jobs in the legal profession or deal with lawyers daily and want to be Real Paralegals.

One of us is demon lawyer spawn on both sides.

Three of us are not (very) gainfully employed, and think being a paralegal beats the heck out of whatever we're doing right now.

Two of us are looking for a career change.

(The mathematically astute among you will notice that this adds up to nine, not seven. Very good. Some of my classmates fit into more than one of these categories. Told ya I'm trying not to get sued...)

The instructors

I don't want to go too far out on a limb as I've only have had one class with each instructor so far. Here are my initial impressions.

The Essential Skills instructor, who will be with us for the whole program, is bright, bubbly (in a non-annoying way), chock full of helpful real-life tips, and is going to challenge us to do our best. She's not adverse to keeping things light and having fun, but I can see her cracking the whip if we start getting behind schedule.

The Torts guy, who will be with us for four weeks -- what can I say without getting myself in trouble? He's had a long, successful career in litigation, and has some terrific war stories to tell. And he tells them entertainingly. Were I looking for a lawyer to handle my problems, I'd put him high on the list, because he obviously knows his stuff. As a teacher, though -- not so good. He didn't cover anywhere near the material we needed to get through the first night. What he did do with us was skim through some of it, and tell us where he disagreed with the textbook's author. I really hope he improves, or we're going to be in a world of hurt come test time.

The venue

As I mentioned before, the office building in which our classes take place is at the intersection of two very busy highways (one of which has just entered a five-year construction program), and within about a mile of a third one. Class starts at 6. Anybody else seeing a potential problem here? As somebody in class put it, "Obviously the person who chose this location doesn't live in the City of Large." No kidding. A wreck on that non-intersecting highway just before Tuesday rush hour tied up the other two highways, and all of the surrounding surface streets. It took Spousie nearly 45 minutes to get me from the train station to class - a trip that should take about 15.* So I'd say the location is a fail. A geographically centrally-located fail, but a fail nonetheless.

The classroom itself is fine. Comfy chairs. Lots of space for the Magnificent Seven. But it's in a suite of offices, the rest of which is Totally Off Limits. This means no vending machines, no sink, no microwave, and no restrooms. There are restrooms around the corner in the building's lobby, but that's the end of the amenities. And again, class starts at 6. Dinnertime. Oops.

Now this one has me baffled. The centerpiece of the program is a very-well-appointed, user-friendly, no-learning-resource-left-behind website exclusively for the use of the program's students (and there are lots, under the auspices of several Major Universities - yup, I'm in a franchised paralegal program). Seriously, the website sold me on attending. It's that good. It's not just an add-on, it's an integral part of the program.

And there is no wi-fi access in our classroom.

No, I'm not kidding.

I don't know how much an 8-user wi-fi hotspot would cost, but it seems to me that it would be worth the price. (I did a quick search and found an offer of $299 for setup and $29 a month for month-to-month service. That'd be $420 plus equipment, and surely a Major University would have a compatible wireless router kicking around somewhere. I'd kick in another $50 bucks to have wi-fi.)

Of course, an all-around better solution would be to hold classes at Large's satellite campus of Major University. I'm not sure why the Mothership couldn't get space for a little bitty class like ours. Hopefully, subsequent classes will get better accommodations.

So that's the way it is, as the few, the proud, the Proto-Paralegals launch their tiny boat into the dark, scary ocean that is The Law. Let's hope the Kraken stays asleep. 

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*Did I mention there's been a logistical change? Instead of driving myself to class, I am leaving work, schlepping my school accouterments to the closest light rail station, and training it to the closest station to Spousie's place of employ. She leaves early, picks me up, carts me to class, drops me off, spends a less mentally exhausting three hours elsewhere, and then fetches me home again. This gives me a chance to snarf a sandwich in the car (or at the train station), to arrive less stressed-out, and doesn't put me and others on the road in danger of my driving home at night. (Trust me; this is a good thing.)

Where am I going, and what am I doing in this handbasket?

So. What's a nice librarian like me doing applying to paralegal school?

Does the phrase “Hail Mary pass” mean anything to you?

Don't get me wrong. I love paralegals. I married one. [waving to spouse, who will be referred to as “Spousie” in this blog] But I've been a librarian for a long time. A really loooooong time. From the time I graduated Library School until the present, I have never been an unemployed librarian. Ever. And I want to keep being a librarian until my bun falls off, my shusher gives out, and they pry the Dewey Decimal Classification from my cold, dead fingers. Problem is, I don't think I'm going to have a choice.

Libraries - all libraries - are getting their budgets slashed, their hours reduced, and their personnel laid off. Public libraries are bearing the brunt of these cuts. After all, if your house is on fire, who do you want to still have a city job: a librarian, or a firefighter? What's a librarian going to do about a bank robber? Read him a story? And those are the more reasonable arguments. There are also the wing-nuts who think My Taxpayer Dollars shouldn't be buying Those People DVDs or providing Them with free Internet access. Whole blogs-full of words have been written (and more ably than I could) to refute those views, so I'll just quote Eleanor Crumblehulme, who said, “Cutting libraries in a recession is like cutting hospitals in a plague.”

Back to the topic at hand.

With the whooshing sound of the budget ax ringing in my ears, I decided I'd better come up with a Plan B if I want to keep a roof over Spousie and me, and the cats' dishes full of kibble. A faint, not-very-fond memory arose from the hindquarters of my brain: law school.

After I stopped laughing and dragged myself up off the floor and back into my chair, I gave it semi-serious thought. I admit that I'm a proud dropout of Western California State School of Law at Swami's Point (a.k.a. WCSSL-SP). I struggled mightily to maintain just north of a 2.0 average in the first year courses I managed to complete. And I swore I would never, ever put myself through that particular hell again. But wait – what about Paralegal school? I already have some foundation (albeit crumbly around the edges) in law. I'm married to a paralegal, for Pete's sake. I could take very reasonably- priced classes at a community college. Hey. I may be on to something here!

The next thing I knew, I was browsing class schedules, checking textbook prices, and wondering if my various Alma Maters still had my transcripts kicking around somewhere.

Now, if I can just convince my employer, Large Public Library (hereinafter referred to as “LPL”), to keep me around until I get a paralegal certificate with my name on it in my hot little hands...

Watch this space. (If you like.)

Coming soon: the continuing adventures of a middle-aged librarian as she goes back to school to prepare for an Exciting New Career as a Paralegal.