My Road to Becoming a Lawyer
Atty. Elizabeth Amelia V. Tianco, MD, FPDS

The road to becoming a full fledged lawyer is one of the most challenging and memorable for me. It began during the last year of my term as PDS president. Unknown to many, I enrolled in the Jose Rizal University (JRU) Law School in Mandaluyong during the first semester of 2002. It was mostly kept as a secret. As a training consultant at Jose R. Reyes Memorial Medical Center, I was uncertain whether such information would have a negative effect on my residents, especially those in their first year, who might wonder why their consultant wanted to go into a field other than dermatology. At my private clinic, only my secretary was in the know, and we had plenty of fun keeping the secret. I would be reading my law books behind closed doors in between patients. She would ensure that I was fed before I left the clinic for school.

Way back in high school, I planned on pursuing law after taking up journalism. As fate would have it, when I obtained a National Science and Development Board college scholarship, my father advised me to become a scientist instead because he said there were few scientists and may lawyers in the country. So I took up BS in Chemistry.

I decided to study law for many reasons. In part it was to fulfill my high school dream. In part it was to challenge myself by studying something totally different from medicine. I suppose that my older brother Benny, being both doctor and lawyer, also played an influence. He graduated from JRU and seeing that he turned out to be a credible lawyer, I decided to enroll in his alma mater.

My schedule at JRU was very predictable – for the first three years, 5:30 to 8:30 pm and in the last two years, 6 to 9 pm. I had to adjust my clinic times so that I would arrive in school on time. Whether I came from home, JRRMMC or my Taft clinic, my travel time was about 30 minutes, and about the same time to get home after school. Had I decided to enroll elsewhere, I would have had to give up much of my practice as a dermatologist.

During my first semester, I enrolled only in one law subject (civil law) because I had to take additional 6 units of English and 6 units of social science subjects in college. These I took also at JRU. My first professor, Atty. Honorato Reyes, Jr. was very pleased to have a doctor in his class. During my first day in class, Atty. Reyes said that only 10% of the first year law students are able to reach the fourth year. We were more than 70 students in class, but I was the only one to graduate in 2007. Another one graduated a year later. Most of the rest did not continue or went to other law schools to avoid terror professors.

I obtained my Bachelor of Laws degree cum laude after five years instead of the usual four years, because my initial semester was just one law subject on account of the college deficiencies. My Vocabulary increased by leaps and bounds because of the words peculiar to the profession. I had three sets of classmates – those from my first semester, those who enrolled during my second semester, and those who started during my third semester. During my last year, I had more classmates from previous classes who had been delayed, and those from the Camp Crame campus. We were 15 graduates when we walked to Aida's march on April 1, 2007.

I made many young and a few older friends in school. Classmates about my age or older were comfortable calling me by my nickname. The younger ones couldn't get over the hump and call me “Doc” to this day. Some of my professors were my age level; others were older; and definitely, I had younger professors.

Looking back I will fondly recall not just the recitations, the periodical examinations and the mock bar examinations. I will also recall how my classmates and I, during our third year, were the Student Council officers, with me as President. We were called the pro-active team. We offered seminars to the students on improving writing and oral communication skills, and helped in the school's first law conference.

During my last year in school, I declined to run for class president. My classmates elected me “class adviser” instead of choosing one of the professors. This was one of the nicest things my classmates did. Thus, I would tell them now and then, “Classmates, I will give you my advice. You'd best begin making those case digests now instead of waiting for the last minute.” Then, they'd ask me if we could just share digests. And I would advise, “No, you do it yourself or you won't learn.” How I loved these classmates. Even when some had gone to other law schools, they went to our school's bar operations site because we were the examiners.

Was it easier to study law or medicine? This was a question often asked while I was in school. My answer was always “It depends.” It depended on whether one had greater interest in the social sciences, and then law would be a breeze. In terms of mental effort, I would say that it was about the same because it is my belief that in order to study something well, there must be focus. In terms of physical effort, I would say that medicine is harder because there are also hospital duties on a regular basis.

Comparing the medical board and bar examinations is a different matter. I would say that the bar exams are ten times more difficult than the medical board exams. Almost everything was in essay form except for a few objective questions. I had worked on my penmanship during the previous two years and so it was definitely legible.

For me, the preparation for the exams started from Day 1 in Law School. The reason was that Atty. Reyes told us from the start that we should be prepared for the exams. Only 20-30% on the average passes the exams. He said, but there was no reason why we shouldn't make it as a lawyer if we have taken our studies seriously. Not all professors were as inspiring, and I believe that much of the stress associated with taking the bar is from stories of how the 70-80% failed, a few having lost their marbles in the process.

Taking the bar exams was quite expensive. During my last semester when I only had four remaining law subjects, I had enough time to enroll in an advanced review course. By the time I graduated, I just did my focused 5-month self review at home. I read the advice written by prior bar passers and topnotchers, and pieced together everything for my review master plan. I had a schedule and rarely deviated.

I had some emotional difficulties because my mother had passed away in June 2006 and I missed my best psychological supporter. I just simply focused, persisted and prayed. I remembered that “I am my father's daughter” because my father passed the bar on one take, and that I promised my mother, when she was hospitalized and I was thinking of dropping out of school for a semester or a year to care for her, that I would continue with my law studies. The other expense associated with the bar exams was that I had to stay in a hotel near De La Salle University Taft, which was the bar examination site, during those September weekends. T paid off in reducing the fears of not waking up or not arriving on time, especially since September is a rainy month and I reside in Sampaloc, an area that is easily inundated. Breakfast was not a problem because it was also provided by the hotel.

On the last day, they doused us all with beer. The smell stayed on my hair for about three days. The professors congratulated me, to which I responded, “Why congratulate me? I have not yet passed!” They said that surviving the gruelling examinations was worth their congratulations. I now like to say that having survived is “incontrovertible proof of my sanity.”

There are very bright people who don't pass the exams. There are a variety of reasons for this. Perhaps the preparation was insufficient, perhaps they were overconfident and too fast in answering the questions, perhaps they had some emotional problems at the time. I just focused, persisted and prayed. Waiting for the release of the results would have been unbearable if I actively waited for it. After all, taking the bar examination is best done only once! On March 29, the day that the results were released, my mobile phone which had been erratic for the previous two days, became cooperative and I received the congratulatory texts and calls without additional stress. The following day, my mobile phone conked out again and I must have missed about a hundred more congratulatory messages. (Mobile phone has now been replaced.)

I am happy to have passed in a year when the examinations were perceived to be difficult because it is a lot more satisfying.

I took my oath as lawyer before the Supreme Court Justices sitting en banc on April 29 at the Philippine International Convention Center. The next day, I signed in the roll of attorneys at the Supreme Court. This was the final step to become a full fledged lawyer.

So, as one witty friend put it, I am now a dermatoLawgist. I am looking forward to practicing both medicine and law.

Editor's Note: Dr. Tianco was among the original 5% who passed the examinations, before the passing rate was lowered to 70, increasing the passing percentage to 22.9% (1,289 out of 5,626 candidates).

Dr. Tianco with her classmates during her oath-taking as a lawyer
at the PICC last April 29, 2008