Sasha Borissenko: Life inside 'law school culture'

Photo / 123RF

OPINION:

Last week I had the opportunity to read and contribute to a sobering read by Janhavi Gosavi of Salient magazine. In 'Law School's Culture—It's Complicated,' she spoke of law school as being ostentatious and illusive. A cool kids club to some, a pretentious prison to others, she wrote.

"Assumptions and accusations run wild: Law School is an elitist, competitive, toxic, and cliquey place full of rich, white, poncy brats who turn their noses up at other degrees."

The article, in conjunction with Victoria University of Wellington's newfound policy to prohibit relationships involving power imbalances, got me thinking about my own experiences:

I chose to pursue law at Otago University for nonsensical reasons. My parents were scientists and feeling contrary, moving to the farthest place from my hometown of Tauranga to study something I had absolutely no concept of or talent for seemed ideal at the time.

It could also have been the strong sense of justice I had as a result of attending Catholic schooling for far too many years. Contraception and talk of menstruation were foreign concepts, no joke.

I applied to reside at Knox College because the castle on the hill tickled my Harry Potter-loving fancy - I cringe at the thought.

The college had its own library - the kind with spiral staircases - and additional tutoring. Residents would dress up in fancy garb - no bra straps or jeans allowed - most nights for dinner. And on top of sporting and performing opportunities, residents would be taught to dance in preparation for two balls every year. What a gas, I thought!

The hall offered a sense of community and opportunity - privilege and all. Choral scholars, for example, would be given $500 a semester to wear silly gowns and sing in the church service every Sunday.

Hilariously you'd be charged about $15 if you missed a session, so it meant one semester I received a bill to compensate for my failure to commit to these Sunday sessions.

While I had a blast - obviously so, seeing as I ended up being a sub master to avoid an imminent break-up in my final year - the hall experience wasn't without its pitfalls.

It was 2007 and the gendered and heteronormative rituals were very real. Take the 'score-board', for example - women and men (no homosexuals existed back then, apparently) would be given points for smooching and other R18 activities.

The woman with the most scores would be awarded the title, 'the Knox bike' and would be the master of the board the following year (traditionally people would stay for two years).

Then there was the annual rugby championship between Knox and rival hall, Selwyn College (fun fact, Selwyn was once headed by MP David Clark of mountain biking through Covid fame).

The 'most attractive' females would be hand-picked - lord knows by who - to run across the field while positively pickled. They'd be topless save for a bit of tape and body paint. Selwyn had a similar tradition - this time males playing basketball in the nude.

You'd also be bathed in a cesspit of piss and vomit if you failed to adhere to dining hall rules - bra straps et al. It sounds heinous in hindsight, and perhaps it was, but at 18 my brain wasn't developed and feminism wasn't yet in one's consciousness.

What was scary was that these traditions were very much driven by the students. We're talking fellow teenagers with under-developed brains, daddy's money, private schooling backgrounds, and a penchant for entitled recklessness.

These characters would go on to graduate from law school with flying colours, work in corporate firms, live in London, get married on Waiheke, pump out 2.5 perfectly blonde children, make partner, before becoming a barrister in the hope of one day becoming a judge. You know the type.

Law school itself was very much hit and miss. I spent much of the first year watching season after season of Skins, 'leaning into' hipster culture, and dreaming up schemes to avoid the 100 per cent final year exams.

Schemes included - a salmonella milkshake, lying under a car/bus while it slowly rolled over an ankle - I could go on.

The second year was much of the same. I still shudder when I think of the pressure of having to pass that full year of hell, I mean, contract, public law, criminal, and property. It felt so foreign, and so impossible that I auditioned for a singing course thinking I definitely needed other options.

Rather than reading any actual cases throughout the degree - no joke, I didn't - instead I put all my effort into getting good notes. It's hilariously ironic that I'm a slave to reading cases in my professional life now.

For the remainder of my degree I'd fail to prepare for tutorials, go to as few lectures as possible, and it took me a good five years - probably more - to get around simple statutory interpretation.

It's of little surprise I found solace in jurisprudence and following an existential crisis learning about access to justice issues, I genuinely thought a career in journalism - communicating hefty subjects for the masses - was the answer. The salary opportunities in journalism - not so much.

Do I regret the $30,000 singing degree I took up in a bid to complement the excruciating agony of law school or going through that hideous experience in and of itself? Absolutely not.

Whether it was the strange conflicting issues associated with my hall of residence or self-flagellation of being a slacker, it existed in a place that fostered community, self-actualisation, reading and writing skills, and opportunity. It's the grey areas that keep you on your toes, I think.