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Law School
In "Snow" I heard Rym once again mention going to law school. Three words describe my law school experience: suck, suck, and suck. My wife went to a different law school and concurs.
There were very few people in my law school (University of Kentucky) that could have been fairly considered "geeks". A good 85% - 90% of my classmates would have been better considered "Jocks" and "Cheerleaders" (or at least Jock-ish and Cheerleader-ish fraternity and sorority types whose undergrad degrees were most likely to be in either english or political science, history being too rigorous), natural enemies of geeks. Even worse, most were trust-fund babies of doctors, lawyers, politicians, and judges. They were emotionless, humorless robots, especially in the all-important first year. Since grades were given out strictly based on a curve, competition was fierce and made it very easy to be paranoid and very hard to make friends. The professors were much more interested in public humiliation than in actually teaching. And then there's the material. Yes, you might have the odd criminal, evidence, or constitutional class that might be mildly interesting, but you'll also have to slog through civil procedure (only interesting once you're working), property, trusts and estates, and maybe even tax. Blecchhh. Torts is okay in the first semester, but when they start talking about products liability in the second semester, you're gonna need a serious stash of No-Doze. Don't even get me started on U.C.C.
It's not an exaggeration to say that the first year sets the tone for your entire career. If you end up at the top of the class, you can get on law review and get decent job offers. If you're in the lower 75%, you're gonna be pretty average. So, after first year when everyone's course is set, the pressure relaxes a bit and things are a little less crappy. A little.
Rym has a good idea to concentrate on a niche area. Schools are churning out so many people that getting something decent when you get out is very hard. A niche area that excludes a large portion of your classmates is going to drastically cut out some of the cutthroat competition. That's why I'm studying for the Patent Bar. There are serious barriers to entry based on undergraduate work. There is only one other person from my graduating class eligible to take it. Actually, I took it once before in 1995 but that year only 33% of the people who sat for it passed. I wasn't one of them. Then I went on an eleven year funfest of criminal, personal injury, and divorce law before I worked up the gumption to try again.
There were very few people in my law school (University of Kentucky) that could have been fairly considered "geeks". A good 85% - 90% of my classmates would have been better considered "Jocks" and "Cheerleaders" (or at least Jock-ish and Cheerleader-ish fraternity and sorority types whose undergrad degrees were most likely to be in either english or political science, history being too rigorous), natural enemies of geeks. Even worse, most were trust-fund babies of doctors, lawyers, politicians, and judges. They were emotionless, humorless robots, especially in the all-important first year. Since grades were given out strictly based on a curve, competition was fierce and made it very easy to be paranoid and very hard to make friends. The professors were much more interested in public humiliation than in actually teaching. And then there's the material. Yes, you might have the odd criminal, evidence, or constitutional class that might be mildly interesting, but you'll also have to slog through civil procedure (only interesting once you're working), property, trusts and estates, and maybe even tax. Blecchhh. Torts is okay in the first semester, but when they start talking about products liability in the second semester, you're gonna need a serious stash of No-Doze. Don't even get me started on U.C.C.
It's not an exaggeration to say that the first year sets the tone for your entire career. If you end up at the top of the class, you can get on law review and get decent job offers. If you're in the lower 75%, you're gonna be pretty average. So, after first year when everyone's course is set, the pressure relaxes a bit and things are a little less crappy. A little.
Rym has a good idea to concentrate on a niche area. Schools are churning out so many people that getting something decent when you get out is very hard. A niche area that excludes a large portion of your classmates is going to drastically cut out some of the cutthroat competition. That's why I'm studying for the Patent Bar. There are serious barriers to entry based on undergraduate work. There is only one other person from my graduating class eligible to take it. Actually, I took it once before in 1995 but that year only 33% of the people who sat for it passed. I wasn't one of them. Then I went on an eleven year funfest of criminal, personal injury, and divorce law before I worked up the gumption to try again.
Comments
I actually had good teachers. The problem was the student body. Half of my class was made up of people right out of college that only cared about making money. As a general rule, they were incredibly shallow people. The other half was comprised of people that were miserable in their career and were looking for a change. The problem is that they were in law school because they really didn't know what they wanted to do.
I was very unique in that my sole concern was not money. I wanted to live in a rural area doing criminal prosecution. In my school, you might as well have been a leper. New York City was the place to be - with cities such as New Haven, White Plains, Hartford, etc being second best. Anything outside of those places was considered absurd.
I was also as poor as can be, while my friends had real jobs with real money. My grocery budget was literally $20 per week.
Having said that... I wouldn't change a thing. I've been incredibly happy with my career, and I get to have a good quality of life as well. Sure, I can't afford the 50 foot yacht, but there are more important things in life.
The long and short of it is that you should only go to law school if you really have a desire to do something specific. Even then, it will be miserable. So many people go to law school with no real idea what practicing law is like, or what area they want to practice in. If you can't make up your mind, you really shouldn't be there in the first place. Sure... you may change your mind, but you should have some concrete goals prior to going in.
My friend is doing a Law/Commerce degree. Hearing her complain about her classes... Incredibly boring stuff. Important in practice but the theory puts her to sleep. Also, apparently a lot of people attend classes in full on suits and are really snooty. Haha! It's funny to see them on the same campus as the engineers (most common clothing being shirt, shorts and thongs).
Considering my past academic performance, I could very likely secure substantial scholarships and/or sponsorships.
I'll probably just ace the LSATs next year and go from there. ^_~
We also had lockers. That, the cliqueeyness and snarkiness of the jocks and cheerleaders, and the small physical separation from the main campus gave it a kind of "high school after high school" feel - if the high school was dominated by Dickensian bullies and headmasters. Some things are very important in practice, but the profs don't tell you what they are. My wife's civ pro prof spent a substantial portion of the semester talking about class actions. Now she's been working as an attorney for thirteen years and has yet to need any class action knowledge. Buried in among the unused class action stuff, though, were some discovery rules that she needs to use nearly every day. Because of the vagaries of scheduling and availability of classes, I ended up taking three semesters of tax law. In twelve years of practice, I've never had to answer a tax question - not even in a divorce.
1) You won't find law school to be hard - at least I didn't. Like you, academics have come quite easily to me, and I didn't feel that law school was hard at all.
2) As stated earlier, your ability to earn top money is largely affected by how well you do your first year. This sets you up to join law review, etc. Here is the problem... it's a somewhat random process. You only take one test per course - your final exam. Two equally smart people may do very differently depending on the whims of the professor in grading the exam. With all of the subjectivity and only one exam, there is bound to be a random element. If you're on the wrong side of that, you won't be making the "big firm" bucks - and there's pretty much nothing you can do about it.
3) If you want to make that kind of money, you're going to have to sell your soul. Nothing wrong with that, if it's what you want, but be aware of the reality. You'll be a literal slave for 5 years or so until you (hopefully) make partner. You'll be working well into the evening on every night, and all day on Saturdays. The pressure to bill is incredible. Associates are the cash cow for large firms. They get paid the least and work the most. Keep in mind that the minimum for most large firms is 1800-1900 hours per year, with the real expectation that you bill 2000+ hours per year. If you take no vacation, that is 38.5 hours per week. Not bad, huh? Think again. You are doing well if you bill 2/3 of your time in the office. And don't forget that to make partner, you better be billing more than average. Since firms can't be too top-heavy, they are going to have to let many of the associates go. Your value is not limited to how good a worker you are - it's how much money you can bring in. (Not by billing, but by bringing in new clients.) If you don't have the potential to be a rainmaker, you aren't going to be partner.
4) In practicing law, quality of life and income do NOT go hand in hand. You'll have to decide which is more important to you. Personally, I've struck a balance between earning a nice living and being able to spend time with my family. I could pick up the phone today and be earning $100k more per year starting tomorrow. I'd also see my kids only on the weekends. And to be frank, it's money that I don't need. (Especially because I'd be moving to an area with a much higher cost of living - most of the extra money goes right out the window.) I'm lucky in that I had many relatives that were lawyers, and saw first hand what it was like. With that information, I feel that I was able to make some good decisions.
5) If you want to earn that kind of money your going to have to cut your hair!
In my humble opinion... if you're going to law school because you want to make a ton of money, you're crazy.
You better be doing it because it's something you love. I've known tons of lawyers. Many of them are absolutely miserable. Some of them quite happy. The ones that are happy are doing something that they love. There is nothing wrong with working your tail off. However, if it's doing something that's boring or miserable, then you're in big trouble.
I could easily double my salary simply by adding these to my current repertoire with the backing of a BS in IT and a JD. I could very likely, if I wanted, swing sitting on the legal advisory boards of several companies as an expert consultant. There's even a fairly good chance I could get a company to sponsor me in exchange for a limited contract of guaranteed employment after the fact, just for the lack of competent experts in this specific field.
I certainly have no interest in being a litigation lawyer. Plus, I'll have the luxury of two degrees, meaning I have readily available fallback options.
Granted, I'm sure I'll be bothering you with inane questions as I get closer to actually doing this. ^_~ My current timescale is 2-3 years
First, Law School, by all accounts, is a joke. Starting with the LSATs (one of the most irrelevant tests ever created) through to your preparations for the bar (which most students pay thousands of dollars to take a semester/summer long class to prepare for, as Law School does not teach to these tests at all), it seems like a lot of jumping through hoops for little-to-no real knowledge. It appears that internships, clerking positions, and the first three years as a practicing attorney teach students any and all relevant knowledge that they will use in their future careers. Law School seems to be set up to arbitrarily classify students into their hierarchy and provide some networking of the "old boy's club" variety. That being said, as much as the idea of Law School turns my stomach, the career which follows it can be rewarding and edifying for those that choose their specialties well and know what they are and aren't willing to sacrifice for their careers. Also, a JD can be applied in so many fields, for so many occupations, that it can be a good investment for those that do not wish to practice law, but knowledge of and experience in law may be of some use.
I don't know about being a consultant/adviser/lobbyist, but I would advise spending at least a year or two as a public defender or prosecutor. There is NOTHING like actually persuading a judge or jury to agree with you and do what you want.
I already advise on licensing issues, and the JD would basically inflate my salary for doing the same thing I do now with more authority.
1) The LSATs are a joke in that they are not at all a predictor of whether or not you will be a good attorney. Having said that, they do serve to separate folks using an arbitrary indicator of intelligence. Taken for what that's worth, I suppose there is some value to them. It's hard for me to pick on them too much, since I did quite well. ;-)
2) Law school is not a joke. You have to understand what it is, and what it is not. Law school does not claim to teach you how to be a lawyer. It's just too wide a field. Law school teaches you how to think like a lawyer. There is definitely merit to this, and it is important to learn these things.
3) The bar review courses are absurd, and those companies feed off of paranoia. A few paranoid people started taking these courses, and now everyone has to take it in order to keep up with the Joneses. (The same can be said of LSAT review courses.) The one good thing about the review courses is that they will teach you what you failed to cover in law school - and to be sure there will be at least one thing you failed to cover. Unfortunately, you have to pay for an entire course when you really only need part of the course.
4) I agree with you that law school is set up to arbitrarily classify students into a hierarchy and is the legacy of an "old boy's club"
5) The bar exam sucks. Thousands of dollars for law school can be sent down the drain thank to the bar exam. But... it serves an important function. I have mixed feelings about it. The reality is that law school is fairly easy to get through, so I can see why states use the bar exam as an additional filter. I passed on the first try, so I guess I've got no real complaints - but it wasn't exactly a "fun" summer.
6) Law can be an incredibly rewarding career. I keep harping back to the people that do it just because they think it's an easy way to make a lot of money. If that's your only motivation, then you are doomed. If you have a level head on your shoulders, then a legal career can be a great career. You also don't have to be a lawyer. A J.D. will open up other doors besides being a lawyer. However, law school is so expensive these days that I question the return on the investment. If you don't intend to be a lawyer, you better decide if the investment is worth it.
7) You have to understand what a career in law is, and what it isn't. You have to understand what a law school degree is, and what it isn't. With all due respect to Rym, the notion that you can graduate law school and start advising boards of corporations is a pipe dream. You've got to get experience in whatever field you choose - and you aren't going to get that experience in law school. The consultants that are in demand have all worked as lawyers - whether in a firm, with the government or with a private company.
When I took the actual exam, I scored in a high-90's percentile.
I'll let you decide if the $600 for the course was worth it. But in case you weren't sure... the answer is no.
Again, if I can get a JD with minimal financial hardship, there's practically no reason not to. Even if I never practice law, my status in IT would be substantially elevated. Anything beyond that would be icing on the cake years down the road. I'm currently in a situation where I may indeed be able to go to law school with minimal investment. I'm on track to make that money in IT as it stands (just somewhat longer-term), and I certainly don't want a job that has me goofing around. I've been bored at every single job I've ever had. Nothing has ever been challenging either at work or in school. Even if I don't practice law, having the JD and passing the bar gives me more options. Having options is one of the most important things in the world to me in all aspects of my life. Heh... I'd gathered that from reading a practice test. ^_~ It's amazing how many scary test preparation books there are out there (for everything: not just the LSATs)...