A few early insights

The Birdcagers will be the first to admit that we fell out of the nest a few times while getting our bearings around here a bit. The pursuit of justice takes some learned coordination. And a little helpful advice from the flock. Here are a few insights we've gleaned in the first few weeks:

• Expect a very minimal work product ratio to the extensive amount of time you spend on a specific task.
• A maintenance worker WILL have to use a blowtorch in the boiler room next door. Don't let the blue, incandescent flames alarm you.
• Your words will fail you. Grammar will dump you like you're a codependent, overly attached girlfriend. When writing client letters, briefs, etc., it will become tediously difficult to form cogent sentences that properly convey the subject matter bobbing about aimlessly off the inside walls of your head.You will have the sentence structuring abilities of a two year old. Yoda will sound more eloquent than you. Yoda will sound like freaking Winston Churchill compared to you.
• Don't panic if/when your underwire sets off the court's metal detector. When the bailiff starts to wave the handheld wand thingy over your body, just lie and say it was a zipper.
• At some point, in some small moment of inevitable futility, you will want your mom.
• Occasionally, the need will arise to make a Chipotle run to acquire a burrito the size of your torso.
• Your accumulated law school experiences will culminate in a  result much like PTSD.  You will realize that, upon completing finals, the knowledge derived from these lectures will be completely, inaccessibly blocked out due to incapacitating trauma.
• You will find yourself taking in rain-sopped strangers from the street through the side door. Because you're a good person. And because you're too caught off guard to wonder if they're violent and/or unstable.
• You will emerge depleted from lengthy meetings spent pouring over case files. You will suffer from a condition called Brain Cramp, an affliction known to predominantly target legal professionals. Imagine having a cranial charlie horse. Or even just a hangover worthy of an unforgettable night you'll never remember, without ever having consumed the associated booze. This is when you will call upon Shenandoah Joe's midway through the afternoon. The barista will comment that you look like you just woke up. You will growl at him to hit you with a fix. Now. 
• Due to the convoluted layout of the building, you will frequently chance upon hidden rooms like you're stumbling face first into Narnia.
• You will donate 400 hrs of your beautiful summer and possibly the last remnants of your twenties that you'll never get back. Which is not indentured servitude, mind you. Legally. Technically. Let's be honest, the Virginia DOL is too overextended and underfunded to do anything anyhow. But the experience will be fulfilling, edifying, rewarding, and fully worth it.