Students at Cardozo are getting an early taste of what life as a young lawyer feels like as they have struggled for months with a never-ending string of broken elevators — tools that appear to offer upward mobility yet remain tantalizingly out of reach. Promised temporary setbacks that nonetheless compound upon themselves until an attorney finds themselves trudging up 11 flights of document review.

It all started back on November 14 with a routine maintenance problem with elevator 4.

At this point, the poor bastards at Cardozo had no idea what was about to happen. By November 27, elevator 4 was still inoperable, but students had managed to work around it. After all, there were other elevators and enterprising students can find alternative solutions.

On November 28, the other shoe dropped:

Let’s take a live look at the Cardozo elevator cam:

Fast forward to February 5:

I’ve got an idea, and hear me out here, maybe it’s time to replace the control panel you describe as “a relic” and maybe not put it underneath a bursting pipe. Frankly, this seems like a way bigger problem than just the impact it might have on elevators.

Speaking of elevators, the school got elevator 4 working again at the end of February by forcing someone to manually operate it like it’s a 1960s Marshall Field’s. That said, a tipster has informed us, “We had to have an operator, a real person, sit inside one of the elevator to get it working, but it was closed off again, probably because the person didn’t want to do it anymore.” LOL.

February 28:

Not sure I want to be in an elevator they have to shut down like a relief pitcher every couple of hours. On the other hand, there’s not much alternative — 11 stories is a tall order for law students. As a tipster put it:

We’ve had only 1-2 working elevators since the end of Fall semester. It’s been ridiculous. Students are panicking and stressed each day due to the up to 20 minute wait times (or risk walking up 11 flights of stairs in asbestos heaven). Again, did I say it’s been months?

The tipster also points out that as inconvenient as this is for most students, those with disabilities are particularly hard hit by elevator shutdown bingo.

This brings us all the way to last Thursday:

This may be the most Biglaw moment a student can confront in law school. Everything is broken. We can’t fix it. It’s probably the fault of the client or someone else outside our control. All we can do is buy you donuts and tell you we’re all in this together. It can be dispiriting, but there it is.

By the way, the donut party was renamed “Elevate Your Day.” It was probably more accurate to name an event on their campus at this point “Stairway to Eleven,” but what do I know.

Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.