Is it too late?

Is it too late for me to become a Supreme Court clerk?

I could go back and retake the LSAT and ignore the Princeton Review's advice so that I get a higher score.¹ I could put some actual effort into applying to the Ivy league.² I could live the One L experience of scheming, hiding books, and freaking out when exams came. I could actually participate in the write on for law review³ and spend the next two years telling law professors that they can't use the word "since" in thier articles because it has a duel, ambiguous meaning. Then I could send out a couple hundred resumes to "feeder" judges, with a cover letter explaining how I came to walk on water at a very early age, that I'm now looking for the more serious challenge of checking to make sure that the 20 string cites in a brief, averaging 15 cites apiece, are all on point, and that I think this will allow me to die a happy and fulfilled man. When I complete that clerkship I can send my resume off to each of the 9, with a cover letter explaining how much I enjoyed being an appellate clerk (especially that 30 page memo I had to research and write on the effect of Utah's Dog Liability statute on a herd of beef owned by an Alabama company which were run off a cliff by a Utah family's dog while vacationing in New York⁴) and that I think being a Supreme Court clerk would not only allow me to die a happy and fulfilled man, it would also guarantee me a place in the firmament. Then, after a year or two more I could go off and get a $150,000 bonus from BigLaw just for walking in the door.

On second thought, I'll just stay where I am.


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¹ The Princeton Review suggested that if unable to complete a section you look up, figure out which letter had been used the least, and fill in the rest of the section with that letter. While doing the thrice-damned logic puzzles I screwed one up and had to redo it. I didn't have enough time to do the last question. Foregoing the age old wisdom of "When in doubt, Charlie out," which I think I had used since kidergarten, I took the Review's advice. I looked up and saw that "D" was the least used and filled all the rest with "D". Not a single one of the answers were "D"; three of the answers were "C". I would have scored in the 170's.

² Yes, I did apply to Harvard but it was half-hearted. One of my fraternity brothers was absolutely beside himself because I hadn't applied to any Ivy League schools. One night, in the middle of a party, he and a couple other Brothers cornered me and made me promise to apply to an Ivy League school if they paid the application fee. So, I filled out the application and one of them ponied up the check. It was way too late to apply so I basically forgot about it after I sent it in and made plans to attend W&L. On the day I graduated from Centre I cleaned out my room and was getting ready to leave when I decided to make one last run by the campus post office. The only piece of mail in the box was the rejection letter from Harvard - the only school which rejected me.
:-(

³ Yep, I chose not to try to write on to law review. I regret not this decision. I had a lot more fun doing moot court and being on the moot court board (we got to travel around the country to competitions). And I didn't have to give up all my weekends sitting in the library checking obscure 17th century legal references.

⁴ Thereby making me the world's foremost expert on a subject which shall never again come before a court anywhere at any time.