The Journey to Graduation Day: Rohit Nath, ’14: Up for a challenge

Rohit Nath has a vivid memory from spring quarter his 1L year that felt rather traumatic at the time but now makes him laugh. He was on the sixth floor of the library tower, taking an exam, feeling overwhelmed by the amount of studying and work required of him. Meanwhile, outside his window, the temperature was rising and the sun was out.

“There was some student out there playing with this puppy. I just wanted to go out too. It was such torture,” Rohit said. “1L spring quarter is tough because you’re expected to do three times as much as you did in the previous two quarters. You always feel like your head’s underwater.”

As he graduates, Rohit, 27, looks back on that time fondly, because he gained confidence in his ability to thrive under pressure. “1L is intense, but I was taught to think in a way I never had before,” Rohit said. “And when it was over, I thought, ‘wow, I can’t believe I actually survived that.’”

He didn’t just survive, he did well enough to make the University of Chicago Law Review staff, an honor that is earned through a combination of grades and a writing competition. Then, as a 3L, he was named editor-in-chief by the previous year’s board. The position is arguably the most demanding and prestigious position a law student can have.

A typical law school stereotype is that the students on a school’s flagship journal – especially the editor-in-chief – are whiz kids who don’t have to work very hard. That has never been the case with him, Rohit said, and he’s been pleasantly surprised by every achievement. So if you ask him if he started law school with the expectation of being editor-in-chief, he responds with an adamant “no way.”

“I’m shocked and humbled by the experience,” he said. “My classmates are so talented, and everything here is so difficult to achieve. You walk into a classroom here and it’s a whole different level of intensity. The people here are the smartest I’ve ever worked with.”

Rohit averaged 80 hours a week working on the journal, its success or failure his ultimate responsibility. The Law Review is published four times a year, and each issue receives hundreds of article submissions. It was Rohit’s job to help make the final decisions on which articles were published, to work closely with the authors during the editing process, and to guide the staff as they wrote their comments. Rohit also participated in the American Constitution Society and the South Asian Law Students Association, and, of course, attended his classes. But the vast majority of his time was spent on the journal.

“I felt like the time was very well-spent,” he said. “I got the experience of editing people who were much more senior than I, people I respect a lot. And I wouldn’t give up the friendships I made on the journal for anything.”

Rohit, who grew up in Phoenix, earned a degree in economics from Wake Forest University in 2009. He spent two years working in Tulsa, Oklahoma, as part of the Teach for America program, and then found himself craving a new intellectual challenge. He had been active on debate teams in high school and college and was told that “all the things I love doing in debate you get to do in law school, and that’s largely been true.”

Fewer than 48 hours after graduation, Rohit will start his new job clerking for Chief Judge Alex Kozinski in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Pasadena, California. That day is fast approaching, but “it hasn’t quite hit me yet,” Rohit said. “I just assume I’ll be waking up and coming to the Law School for the foreseeable future.”

Rohit said he’ll miss his friends and professors and the luxury of “not having to worry about anything but classes and Law Review.” And intellectually, the Law School has not yet let him down, not even in his final days here. “I feel like I still learn a lot every day.”

But it’s time to go find the next challenge.