By Jaime Marquart & Robert Ebert Byrnes
Reviewed by Robert H. Miller

TWENTY-FIVE YEARS ago, Scott Turow gave us "One L," his account of the first year at Harvard Law School, which quickly became standard-issue summer reading for a generation of law students about to enter their first year. Now, a generation later, Jaime Marquart (Harvard) and Robert Byrnes (Stanford) revisit their Generation X law school experiences and, predictably, the results aren’t pretty.

Those anticipating another round of uncomfortable misadventures with the likes of Professor Kingsfield from "The Paper Chase," however, are in for a very rude awakening. Marquart and Byrnes’ true-life chronicle (allegedly only the names were changed to protect the guilty) of their just-completed years at Harvard and Stanford law schools invites the reader on a sociopathic, Id-driven thrill-ride through crack dens, binge drinking, the high stakes pits at Foxwoods, and even an orgy or two for good measure.

Marquart and Byrnes write well, and weave an admittedly engrossing tale – but engrossing in the way that a particularly horrible accident compels you to slow down and gawk at the carnage strewn all over the highway. In "Brush with the Law," Marquart and Byrnes have similarly strewn the tragic tale of their spiraling addictions, emotional instability and insecurities, and scary confrontations with unresolved life questions (and consequently their undeniable waste of two precious seats at two of this nation’s top law schools) all over the pages of this book for the world to read. More than once, I found myself wincing, covering my eyes or my mouth, and wondering aloud why the hell anyone would ever admit to something like this in print?

In many ways, the authors’ candor in recollecting their experiences was refreshing. Their treatment of the all-too-familiar law school archetypes was thoroughly entertaining, though there is much less discussion about the actual law school experience in "Brush with the Law" than there is treatment of both authors’ various "extra curricular" activities and adventures. At other times, though, the authors’ honesty was deeply disturbing. For example, their discussion of their willing slide into complete and utter moral depravity once it was clear that their goals could be attained without hard work was disconcerting, in particular, author Byrnes’ remorseless and almost flaunting admission, on the book’s dust cover, that he cheated on at least one exam – which begs the question of what moral bounds he would find deserving of his respect in practice.

The thesis of "Brush with the Law" is that it is not only conceivable, but eminently possible for a person to go to law school, never attend a single class, never actually read the cases, spend all of his time stoned, drunk, cycling, gambling, having sex with multiple members of his class (even multiple members of his class at the same time) and then get copies of outlines that other people made, read them a couple of times before the exams, earn better-than-average grades, graduate with honors, pass the California Bar exam (after a review course) and walk out with a job at one of Los Angeles’ most prominent law firms. In fact, it’s not just possible – it happened, at least twice. And now Harvard and Stanford’s dirty little secrets are out (Marquart and Byrnes made sure to reprint their diplomas in the back of the book to resolve any lingering doubts) and have both joined Quinn Emanuel, one of the nation’s most prestigious litigation firms, where they are both associates to this day.

As a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Law School at the same time that Marquart and Byrnes were graduating from Harvard and Stanford, I don’t doubt that the same act might have worked at Penn. There were plenty of old outlines floating around, and more than once, I experienced the same frustration Marquart and Byrnes reference – the phenomenon of knowing a subject cold, writing the outline that everyone else uses, even teaching the subject to others, only to get a lower grade on the exam than all of those people. There is, no doubt, a fair amount of serendipity in law school grading that, due to the emphasis typically given to these grades – especially 1L grades – tends to seep into all other aspects of the law school experience, too.

All of that misses the larger point, though, of why one cannot come away from reading "Brush with the Law" without shaking one’s head at the misguided conclusions advanced in it. Accepting as true the authors’ premise that gathering good grades and the various brass rings that law school offers up may give way to shortcuts, law school is, of course, about much more than just gathering good grades and accolades. And despite the shortsightedness of many, it’s also about more than the job you end up getting. Those who truly engage the law school experience know that it is precisely that – the experience, the feeling of working hard, of being challenged to engage difficult questions, think critically and carefully analyze issues – that holds the real value. And it is the feelings of accomplishment, confidence and self-worth that come from having overcome that struggle that Marquart and Byrnes have graduated without. The rapid ity and completeness with which both Marquart and Byrnes were willing to exchange what they might have made of the experience at Harvard and Stanford for the "easy road" – and descent into a world of addiction and escapism that apologists for these two would probably call "existential" or even "romantic" – is the more global and more frightening theme worth exploring in this book.

Years from now, "Brush with the Law" will likely be seen as emblematic of the moral decay that characterized the 1990s, when, in so many ways and in so many places, people were willing to take shortcuts, look the other way or excuse bad behavior if the "ends justified the means." To a few, it will also, no doubt, become a slacker’s guide to a law school experience that, even if successful, will be eerily empty. To fewer still, though, I fear, it will raise haunting questions about exactly to whom it is that we are entrusting the future of our nation’s legal system – and what exactly is motivating the people with whom we will be practicing law in the next generation.

Robert H. Miller, a senior litigation associate at Sheehan, Phinney, Bass & Green, is a 1998 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Law School, and the author of the critically acclaimed "Law School Confidential," published by St. Martin’s Press.

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