Part of me hates law school. It stole from me the tranquil bliss that accompanied my previously complete ignorance of the legal system.

Law school arms us with new critical-thinking skills. It further sharpens our vision by drilling us in the art of "issue spotting" -- discerning (or creating) legal claims and unsettled legal questions in everyday events. We emerge from the program with a heightened sensitivity to unfairness and injustice as well as a longing to fight legal battles that we previously would have passed unawares.

It’s much like the 1963 horror film "X", in which the protagonist, Dr. Xavier, develops an eyedrop that allows him to see beyond the normal range of human vision. After prolonged use, the effect becomes an irreversibly progressing curse. Xavier begins to see the edges of the universe, including a godlike being with an "eye that sees us all" and looks squarely back at him. A pastor proclaims that what Xavier sees is "sin and the devil" and quotes from the Bible, Matthew 18:9, "If thine eye offends thee, pluck it out!" Xavier chooses to blind himself rather than see anything more. In a rumored alternate ending, Xavier afterwards screams, "I can still see!"

Like Xavier's eyedrops, three years in law school provides us with a view of the universe that once obtained can never be lost. We see slings and arrows all around that we yearn to oppose. But once we begin that fight, we may never stop because the law is like an eternal home-improvement project. It will drain, without mercy, all the money, time, patience, spirit, soul and other resource that we permit it to tap. We use the law to press for justice until, exhausted in every sense (or at least of every cent), we stop trying to shape it and resign ourselves to shape our lives around it.

But our law also requires balance in all things. Whenever it takes, it must also give. What the law saps from one, it must imbue in another. And so, despite the damnable essence of it, we tilt on in hopes that, eventually, when the battlefield is cleared we will find ourselves on the right side of the equation.

Even in our losing efforts, and even if the losses mount, we have faith in the core of the system. That is, we cling to a simple truth that to function in any proper manner humanity requires the rule of law. So when any outcome defies our now overdeveloped sense of fairness, we find fault not in the system but instead in the men and women who make, enforce, employ and administer the laws within it. The blame thus lain, we can convince ourselves to return to the fray, confident that our time and talent eventually will set others on the righteous path.

Even in retirement we are unable to look away from the battles in which we long to be a part. Our training will not permit us to lie down our arms when surrender would yield injustice. Yet, every victory means that there is some foe that in their view finds injustice still and that will, in time, begin the fight anew. We thus live for battles that, once won, are destined to be fought again and again.

Opposition aside, when we emerge from school as warriors for hire, we are beholden by oath to principles that, due to our very training, are subject to everlasting re-interpretation. We sail to our battles on a sea of constant questions, each with innumerable plausible answers, and constant searches for nonexistent grails. This is the purgatory to which law school irrevocably commits us. malcontent warriors are we.

But let us not forget, warriors such as us have rescued homes, saved lives, preserved liberties and freed the oppressed. Champions among us remain ready to defend the walls we have built and take back any ground lost. Graduating law school places us on the path to a hall of heroes and gives us the tools to walk it.

I can never go back to my prior, simple life with its peaceful sleep of the oblivious. Part of me hates law school for that and always will. But I nevertheless love what law school helped me become because I can now recognize what the law provided and promises for us all.

Ellisen Turner is an associate at the Los Angeles office of Irell & Manella, where his practice includes intellectual property litigation and patent prosecution. You may reach him at eturner@irell.com.