Every law school has them. But rather than the quintessential “mean girls” we met through “the plastics” in the 2004 hit film, or even that nasty group of girls many know so well from high school, the mean girls in law school are a little different.
They don’t necessarily wear the latest designer clothes and you would rarely find them gossiping about another girl’s mismatched hair highlights. If anything, when a girl walks into a tute dressed in bright colours and heels you’d mostly likely hear one of the law school mean girls saying: “she doesn’t even go here!”
Instead of the usual gossip about who hooked up with who and what were the best summer parties, you would often hear law school mean girls talking about their summer clerkships at Big Glass Tower Law Firm and how they were the only applicant in the whole country to achieve some unknown award created in their honour.
They are rarely ever in competition over the class’ “Aaron Samuels”, but be sure not to get in their way of scoring an HD because there will be chaos. If you happen to make friends with one of these law school mean girls, don’t expect that you have just gained admission into an exclusive study group, because these girls don’t share their notes and hate collaborating for group assignments, as the thought of sharing an HD with another student makes them cringe.
Perhaps I’m exaggerating or have found myself on the wrong side of some of the ‘elitist’ girls in my classes. My first experience with a law school “mean girl” came in my first year of uni. Interested in why this girl chose to study law, I innocently asked if she had done legal studies in high school and whether this had piqued her interest in law. This question came as a shock to this girl – “legal studies wasn’t offered at my school, it’s not a smart enough subject”. I proudly told her I enjoyed the high school subject and she responded as she examined my fairly bright and flamboyant outfit saying, “well you would, wouldn’t you”.
At the time I still hadn’t gained admission into my law degree (I had missed the cut off by about 2 points) and as a mere arts student my conversation with this girl certainly didn’t make me feel very confident about my years ahead in law.
That day, I had a criminology class with this girl and we were due to receive our first assignment marks. The tutor had told us only one student scored a high distinction and I immediately thought it was this girl who had achieved such an astounding mark, and from her facial expression it seemed she thought so too. So you can only imagine how devastated she was when the teacher announced my name to the class.
Sometimes when I think of the girls in law school, I think of the scene straight from mean girls when all the girls were pouncing on one another like wildlife from the jungle. It’s competitive and some girls are fierce. So if you ever meet a law school mean girl… stay out of her way. You’ll be a happier and probably less stressed law student as a result.
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