Alumni Relations

I'm in the Law Review office, stuffing envelopes. I'm not supposed to be stuffing envelopes, my committee members are supposed to be stuffing envelopes. But I just really don't want to do anything else, so, I revert to the comfort of collating and folding.

Phone call. The two staff members with me look up in alarm. Like maybe the phone is a fake and is in fact a bomb that is now going to explode.

Sadly, nothing that fantastic.

I pick up, and politely greet our caller. (Say what you want about me, but I have very nice phone manners. My mama raised me right.)

"Hi, I'm an alumni of the Law College and of the Law Review."

"Great! How can I help you?" (People who only speak to me on the phone probably think I'm a lot nicer and cuter than I actually am.


"Are you one of the students who writes for the Law Review?" Ok, at this point I begin to suspect that he is not in fact a Law Review alum. I happen to be a student who has written something for the Law Review, but that's really just dumb luck, because that's not really what we do in this office.

"Um. Yes, I'm member of the Law Review. How can I help you?"

"Well, I'm a practitioner, and I have a question. Can you answer it for me?"

I assume maybe he wants to know how to submit an article.

"Well, the legislature changed some words in some law and I want to know if judges are just going to automatically throw these MIP cases out from now on."

Now I'm starting to doubt that he's an alum of the Law school and maybe not even a practitioner, because I think then maybe he would realize that I can't give legal advice and he certainly shouldn't be asking some random law student for it. Not to mention the fact that I'm not a judge and am in no position to say how judges are going to interpret a given statute. Also, lazy-face, it's called research. Do some.

I pause for a second, wondering if maybe this is some sort of test.

"Um. Well, I'm not sure and I really can't give legal advice (which you should know, if you are indeed a lawyer, as I'm starting to suspect you are not) and even if I was a lawyer, it would be hard for me to say, because I'm not a judge (also, DO SOME RESEARCH)."

"Ok. Thanks, bye!"

Why do I always field the weird phone calls?