Evidence class ended, thankfully, without my having to review a case or argue anything at all. My tactic has been to over-volunteer whenever I am well prepared for a class, hoping that it will lessen the likelihood of being called upon when I am unprepared. So far, almost two years into my time at law school, it has worked. I waved goodbye to the professor and headed out the door.

Gould School of Law at USC was great. I enjoyed the campus experience, tailgating for Trojan football games, the events, the steady pulse of tens of thousands of students packed into a two-square mile space in the middle of one of the most exciting cities in the world. It was a far cry from my undergraduate experience at Bowdoin in Maine.

I had grown up in Pasadena, north of LA, and I wanted something different for college. So, I chose something about as far away as I could. But while the school itself was amazing, I couldn’t handle the cold winters, so I moved back to Southern California. I had zero regrets. The Friday April sunshine bathed the campus in golden light. The law school was right in the middle of the compact campus, so after exiting the building I was immediately swept up in the current of bodies heading to or from their last class of the week. I angled my way across the throng toward the center of campus, between Tommy Trojan and the statue of Traveler. My destination was a bar called Traditions, one of the few places to get a drink on the campus itself. It had become a Friday ritual for my friends and me.

Tasha was with me in Evidence, but she had stayed behind to talk with the professor. I didn’t want to risk further discussion of cases I hadn’t read, so I had left her behind. Kyle and Emma, who had started dating like three days into our first year and had been joined at the hip ever since, were coming from a Negotiation seminar. Tasha and I had laughed behind their backs at how their penchant for long, arduous conversations with each other, planning out, discussing, and actively managing every aspect of their relationship had prepared them for that course. Emma and Kyle had already gotten a booth when I arrived.

“Hey, Cora! Tasha get lost or something?”

Kyle perceived himself to be far funnier than he really was. I twisted my face into a sarcastic grin and Emma responded with a look of sympathy. I guess dealing with bad jokes was one of the aspects of their relationship they had negotiated. I didn’t dignify Kyle’s comment with a reply and slid into the booth, signaling to the waiter and ordering a mojito. Even though it was still early spring, it was warm enough to justify a refreshing cocktail. By the time Tasha had walked in, I was halfway done with my drink.

“Hey, Tasha, want to get together tonight to study?”

“With you? The girl who didn’t even read the cases for today?”

I gave her a winning smile.

“Come on, that’s like the first time I haven’t been prepared for class.”

“Yeah, this week.” She laughed. “Not that it seems to matter. You never seem to drop below the top three in the class.”

We settled into our routine and let the stress of the week melt away.

The weekend passed slowly. I hadn’t had an exciting weekend in, I can’t remember how long. The campus quieted down on the weekends. A lot of undergrads were from the area, so they went home to do laundry, hang out with friends, or hit the beach. I enjoyed it, the school was a lot prettier when you could actually see it. Even though my mom still lived nearby in Pasadena, I didn’t visit often. Tasha and I shared a house in the neighborhood of Eagle Rock, which was where a lot of professors and grad students lived. But I still made the trek to school on most weekends to study. It was harder to focus in my own house. If I sat myself in the library, I made sure that I got done whatever I needed to get done quickly so that I could leave. It usually worked.

It also gave me an excuse not to go to Pasadena.

I loved my mom, but ever since my dad left, she had been really hard to be around. I wanted to be supportive, to be a shoulder to cry on, but it was so draining. My mom was filled with energy, to the point of being frantic. Normally she kept a lid on things, but when it was just her and me, she could just unload a torrent of thoughts and emotions. It was hard to keep up. Not that I begrudged her some quirks, some emotional instability. The divorce had hit her hard.

It is something of a cliché, the story where a middle-aged couple split up because a husband falls in love with a younger woman, but it doesn’t make it any easier when it is your cliché. There had been tension between the two of them a few years before he announced he was leaving, but I hadn’t thought anything of it. I had been graduating from college, then spending a couple of years abroad, working for a girls’ education non-profit in South Africa. I was pretty far into myself at the time and I guess I wasn’t really paying much attention to them.

I still loved my dad, despite the pain he caused my mom. It’s hard to stop loving a parent. But I made a deal with myself soon after I found out. I was never going to get into a serious relationship with a lawyer.

My dad was a plaintiff’s attorney, a very successful one. He spent more hours at the office than he did at home. I remember fondly the rare occasions when we would all do something together: a day on the beach in Malibu, sailing on Santa Monica Bay, football games at the Rose Bowl. But those events were few and far between. I guess I hadn’t seen it, but my parents had drifted apart long before they split up. My dad got a new place downtown with a paralegal from his office, and my mom kept the house in Pasadena.

I am not certain how my image of my father influenced my decision to go to law school. Maybe I wanted to prove to myself that I was a better person. I wanted to use my law degree for good, not just to enrich myself. I was taking a seminar on international human rights and hoped to do something to help those in need.

That’s why I was apprehensive about my internship interview at my uncle’s law firm. My mom’s brother was a criminal defense attorney at one of the best firms in LA. He had done a lot of high profile cases involving celebrities, but mainly focused on white collar defense. It was a great opportunity for me to get some real experience. They spent a lot of time in court and there was no substitute for an actual courtroom. The trial simulations in law school were focused on learning one specific thing at a time. In a real trial, even in the pretrial motions, you had to deal with all sorts of unexpected issues. It would be a chance to be involved in trial preparation, to try my hand at crafting real arguments for real cases.

On the one hand, I firmly believed in the rights of the accused. I had read enough cases where evidence was planted or searches were conducted improperly to know that the police and the prosecutors could sometimes go overboard. There needed to be a check, a counterbalance to prevent innocent people from being victimized by overzealous law enforcement. But on the other hand, I had spent enough time working with non-profits to know that a lot of people suffer from criminal activity and that a lot of times the more powerful the perpetrator, the less likely there would be any justice for their victim.

I knew that my uncle walked a fine line in his own conception of the morality of his profession. He was a believer in the system. He was convinced that the adversarial approach, where defense attorney advocated against prosecutor, would more often than not arrive at the correct conclusion. I wasn’t sure I had that kind of faith. Not that it mattered. He had offered me an internship for the summer and it was going to be a great resume builder for when I went looking for a real job.

As if on cue, my cell phone rang. It was my uncle.

“Hi, Cora, how is your weekend going?”

“Hey, Uncle Edward. Just getting some studying in, how are you?”

“I just wanted to check in and make sure you were ready for your interview tomorrow. It is just a formality, of course, but still, you want to make a good first impression.”

I’m sure what he means by this is that he wants me to make him look good. I don’t know why the acumen of your relative has any bearing on how other people perceive you. I mean, I’m sure Einstein had a nephew that wasn’t too bright. But according to my mom, it was important to Uncle Edward that I reflect well on him.

“I will be ready to go, promise.”

“Good, good. I am going to set you up with one of my best litigators. Now he can be a bit abrasive, so don’t be put off. You can learn a lot from him.”

A lawyer with a combative, unpleasant personality? What a shocker.

“Don’t worry about me. I’ll see you on Monday?”

“Be there at ten, ok?”

We said goodbye. I packed up my books and headed out for a coffee break.