16 Tons

Trey Smith

As a follow-up to my post from earlier this evening, in reading over the numerous legal briefs I submitted to the Student judicial Court during my grad school days, I have two interesting observations.

First off, my friends and family are right: I would have a made a damn good lawyer! Most of the documents I retained show sound legal reasoning, including the use of judicial precedents. It is clear that I performed a lot of research and this is reflected in the materials.

Secondly, I think I now better understand why the officers of student government as well as the university's administration labeled me a "thorn." It is a reflection of my autism in conjunction with my OCD personality. Unconcerned with brevity, I think it is safe to say I overwhelmed them with legal reasoning. I countered every objection raised with a myriad of legal briefs and addendums. While I believe my legal reasoning stands up to the test of time, the sheer volume of materials I submitted probably caused their eyes to glaze over!

I can now say that my insistence on seeing justice prevail is the chief reason that it did not. I submitted so many documents that one might have thought that I was arguing cases before the US Supreme Court instead of a bunch of 20 year olds pretending to be student judges.