On Friday I finally became a lawyer. It's been a long time coming, and in the recent past, whenever someone would ask me what I do for a living, I'd still feel a little dirty telling them "I'm an attorney" because I wasn't really one. See, lawership is one profession that requires a formal swearing-in ceremony before it's official, and I had to miss the big swearing-in ceremony in October when most people of my law school class became Virginia lawyers.

I took the Virginia bar exam in July, and in mid-October, the results came out online and I learned I had passed. The letter I received a couple of days later, though, was weird. It said congratulations on passing the bar exam; however, your application is not yet done being reviewed, so we can't swear you in yet. I don't know what it was that held them up in reviewing my application. I talked to a friend who had the same problem and he said he found out that they hadn't received one of his driving records. But I wasn't asked to supplement any new records, and a couple of weeks later, I received word that my application was complete and I was allowed to be sworn in.

The problem was that it was just about too late, and besides, the day of the big swearing-in ceremony for all July bar exam-passers was the same day as a huge deadline at work, so I couldn't make it anyway, even if the paperwork was ready.

So soon thereafter (Ellie was born only a couple of days later) I called to see if I could make an appointment to get sworn in on my own. I had hoped to be able to schedule something immediately following my paternity leave, so I could sneak an extra day off. But I was told that the Supreme Court of Virginia doesn't hold session in November or December, so the first time I could do it would be the second week of January.

So I made my appointment for Friday the Thirteenth of January, and this week I kept it.

I and about 40 or so other people showed up at the Supreme Court building in Richmond at 8am (which required leaving Alexandria at 6, but at least we were going against traffic). We checked our names off a list with the security guard and were told to wait in the hall till we would be called upstairs to complete some paperwork.

About half an hour later, they called us upstairs to the court clerk's office, where we checked our names off a list again, and stood around waiting for the paperwork to be introduced. Turns out we were really just waiting for a lady to show up from the attorney general's office who would introduce us to the court. She took us back downstairs as soon as she showed up.

We filed into he courtroom, were given some difficult-to-understand and pointless instructions about where to stand, and then the justices came in.

"Oye, oye!" shouted the clerk. I didn't hear the last part of the rote introduction she recited because th first sentence was, "Silence, upon pain of imprisonment, all who enter here!"

Sounds like a pretty harsh punishment for just talking in the courtroom. But I wasn't about to test the justices' tolerance levels. Apparently Shelly (who was sitting on the other side of the room with the rest of the observers) wasn't either, because soon thereafter, Ellie let out a solitary squeak, and Shelly raced for the door. The tragic part was when she determined that Ellie wasn't going to pipe up again and get herself thrown in the slammer, and she tried to get back in. The bailiff at the door cracked it open just far enough to glare at Shelly, nod no, and close it again.

So without my wife and baby in the audience (who had woken up at 5:15 and driven two hours to be there), I was introduced to the justices of the Virginia Supreme Court as someone who had been licensed by the state bar, and who is seeking admission to practice law in the state of Virginia.

Then we all took the oath of office, which included a line where we swore to "demean" ourselves as lawyers.

As if it wasn't bad enough that everyine else makes lawyer jokes and thinks poorly of my proffession, now I have to demean myself, too. Great.