More To Life Than Chasing Paper

Paper Chase is mandatory-viewing for anyone involved in the law.

It's an inspiring movie, which reminds law students that there's more to life than "making the grade."

The movie follows a group of law students through the horrors of their first year at law school. Hart, the cool and brilliant "try-hard" from America's heartland, plays the protagonist. Susan, the daughter of legendary Contract Law professor Charles B. Kingsfield, plays Hart's love interest. Hart and Susan, often aloof to the would-be lawyer's plight, confront the seemingly impossible challenge of surviving Hart's life as a law student, while remaining together.

A memorably scene happens just passed the midway mark (or mid-Spring semester mark) in the movie, when Hart breaks down in front of Susan in a grocery store, after being reduced to rubble by Professor Kingsfield. Hart, obsessed with finishing at the top of Kingsfield's contracts class, is distraught by the berating. Susan cuts Hart off midstream, and rants:

They finally got you, Hart, they sucked all that Midwestern charm right out of you. Look, he's got you scared to death. You're going to pass, because you're the kind the law school wants. You'll get your little diploma. Your piece of paper that's no different than this roll of toilet paper . . . and you can stick it in your silver box with all the other paper in your life. Your birth certificate, driver's license, marriage license, your stock certificates, and your will... I wish you would flunk, there might be some hope for you.

Hardships continue, but Hart and Susan persevere and remain together until the end.

The final scene is poignant. With law school finished, Hart sits alone, on a rock next to the beach, malaise. Susan strolls down the beach to meet Hart with a letter in her hand. Hart's "grades letter." Hart looks at it for a moment, smiles into the sunrise, runs to the top of the reef, and sails the unopened letter off into the ocean . . . He stands atop the rock watching the letter sail off, and looks back.

In the end, there was more to life than "making the grade."