Hey, you. Yeah, you… The guy in the tattered Colgate Lacrosse hat sitting at the computer killing a hangover, reading shit like this when you’re supposed to dropping and adding courses for your senior year. You don’t know what you’re going to do with your life when you graduate, do you? Accountant? Too boring. Doctor? No chance at that with a Poli-Sci major and a 3.1 GPA. Finance? Good luck getting hired in this market.
I know what you’re thinking… Law school, right? I’m not going to talk you out of it. If you’re still interested after hearing all the reasons not to go you’re either really desperate or really committed to the project.1 But there are a few things a person like you ought to know going into the thing – a little friendly advice from a fellow screw-off who stumbled into the career.
1. Do not spend the LSAT prep course money at the bar.
If you’re looking into law school you’re not much for math or linear thinking. Otherwise you’d be on your way to Wall Street. You’ve taken three years of classes like “The History of Wicker,” “Allegorical Significance of Elves in Middle Earth Literature,” and “Famous Southern Marxists,” dashing off last minute papers on Ritalin binges to hold your meager GPA. This won’t fly on the LSAT. Put the bar tabs on the Discover Card (you’re going to max it out at some point this year anyway). Spend the money mom gave you for the LSAT course on the actual classes. Trust me. There’s no other way that liquor sponge between your ears is ever going to get through those logic exams. Don’t believe me? Answer this in the next ten seconds:
A swinger’s club has five rooms, numbered 1 through 5. Each room accommodates up to two people. Three couples–Edith and Purvis, Melvyn and Ethel and Bertha and Adolph –are visiting at the same time. Melvyn is sharing a room. Ethel is not sharing the room she is in, which is situated immediately next to an empty room. Edith is not sharing a room with either Purvis or Bertha. Purvis is in either the third or fourth room. Which of the following groups of swingers could occupy the second room? Assume all are bi-curious.
(A) Melvyn only; (B) Edith and Purvis; (C) Melvyn and Ethel; (D) Adolph and Edith; or (E) Adolph, Purvis, and Bertha.
However true it might be, “Dude, that’s a retarded hypothetical… What could that shit ever have to do with being a lawyer?” is not a correct answer. Take the course.
2. “I’ll just drink beer tonight” is not the proper approach to the evening before the LSAT.
Everybody has that buddy who doesn’t study for the LSAT, plays beer pong until 2:00 a.m. the night before and still scores a 175. He doesn’t go to law school, of course. He goes to MIT Business School and runs a hedge fund when he’s thirty. This is good because you’ll get to freeload at his summer place from time to time when you’re older. For now, however, absorb this cold reality: You. Are. Not. Him. Don’t even try to make the argument in your head. Yes, he’s as a much of a mess as you are on the surface, but when he goes to class once a semester it’s to ace an exam in String Theory 303 or Organic Chemistry, not to hand in his fourth paper of the year on Canterbury Tales.
You need to stay home the night before the LSAT, rent a movie and no, do not drink beers as a sort of “light buzz” to fall asleep.2 This leads to a multiple pitchers with friends, which leads to late night gorging, which leads to you running to the bathroom multiple times during an already arduous test the next morning. Let me assure you, there is no pain on Planet Earth like sitting in a stall in the middle of the LSAT, wiping the wages of Milwaukee’s Best and Taco Bell burritos from your ass, the whole time wondering, Could Adolph, Purvis and Bertha all be in the same room?
Of course not. Bertha’s only into soft-swinging.
3. Bullshit
It’s going to be difficult for you to get into law school. Most of your competitors will have much better resumes. They’ll write essays about building bridges with volunteer crews for refugee camps in Third World protectorates or interning at a law firm that just argued a Supreme Court challenge to New York Times v. Sullivan. Your essay about wanting to be a lawyer from the first moment you finished To Kill a Mockingbird, fleshed with plagiarisms from Matlock and Law and Order, is practice meat for the admissions office’s new shredder.
You need to bullshit your way into law school. Really. Remember the only good line in the movie version of Bonfire of the Vanities, where McCoy’s father tells him, “If the truth won’t set you free… then lie”? That’s you, Sherman. And if you don’t want it bad enough to lie – if you can’t or aren’t willing to lie – you have to stand back and ask yourself, “Is law the right career for me?”
| This is you: | Lawrence “Mushrooms” Melwood Major: Political Science GPA: 3.0 Clubs: (Insert graphic of chimpanzee picking navel here) |
| This is your application: | Lawrence Mason Melwood, III Major: Political Science (Concentration in history of African and South American economic systems; Minor in Classical Religions) Academic Achievements: Dean’s List3 Activities: Student Democracy in Action; Earth Day Committee; Chomsky Readers Association; Students for Choice; Students for More Choices; Students for Additional Choices, Options, Alternatives and Preferences; Nader 2012 |
It’s all a math game. If you spend enough money and spray enough phony applications around the country, statistically one of them’s going to hit pay dirt. And don’t worry about being nailed for doing it years later. If you’re bringing enough cash into a firm, they won’t care if you’re a registered sex offender. Most of your fellow litigators will respect you for it – call it “brilliant, daring strategy.”
4. Do not buy books.
Once you’re accepted, the tendency is to buy a lot of thick legal books. This is wrong, and dangerous. Those books are confusing, filled with complex constructions and long Latin phrases. They’re also incredibly heavy, to the point of being a health hazard. Sciatica, vision impairment from staring at the tiny, dense text and narcolepsy from falling face down in them every time you try to read a case — this is what you get from legal textbooks. Unless you want a bad back and the cost of Lasik surgery after your first year, save your money and get your school materials from No. 5 on this list.
5. Make friends with “The Lawstitute.”
Law school’s not a beauty pageant. And I’m not being sexist here. In fact, the law school singles scene is a lot crueler to females than males. A lazy woman looking for anything from a fuck buddy to Mr. Right is faced with endless varieties of Dustin Diamond, Beavis, Bobcat Goldthwait and the guy who played the subway ghoul in Ghost. There will, however, be at least one “Lawstitute” in your class – the woman who will fawn over any male she thinks has the best course outlines, however frequently he picks his teeth during conversations, sweats through his short sleeve Oxford or references Philip Dick novels.
Some will disagree. They’ll say the best tactic is to make friends with the stressed people hiding in the library all day writing their own notes. This is terrible advice. Those people think too much. Their notes will be confusing, overly comprehensive and lack any semblance of focus. Get to know the Lawstitute. Make her a close friend. She’ll have all the Grade A outlines you need, and a wealth of future contacts. This is a person who’s going places – places you can’t because you don’t have her rack. Or her mouth.
6. Get a job.
Normally I’d never recommend this, and friends from law school would vehemently disagree, but I say get a job. If you have good course outlines, there isn’t much reason to go to class. In fact, class will only hurt your grades. Law isn’t brain surgery. The difference between the best and worst students isn’t thinking, churning or studying endless hours. The difference is not thinking. The people at the top are limited, and that’s by design. They narrow their focus and deal with a finite set of concepts – the simple issues at the heart of complex fact patterns. They don’t focus on learning every silly, peripheral fact. They memorize the minimum they need to know to ace the exams and not a stitch more.
Class involves thinking, and thinking works like drinking. A little leads to more, and more leads to excess and then fatally, suddenly, without even realizing it, you’ve lost all focus. The only way you can be sure to evade this common pitfall is to avoid all of your classes – be certain you won’t be there. The only way to do that is to get a job requiring you to be somewhere else. And anyway, work builds character. Nothing teaches you to appreciate your time in graduate school like having a day job.
7. Avoid “That Guy.”
You won’t meet many people you like or relate to in law school. It’s an asshole magnet, just like the career, and that’s kind of the drill – a necessary part of the education. Inevitably, however, you will run into “That Guy” who’s just like the people you hung out with in college. Avoid him like the plague. Do not become friends. Both of your class ranks will drop twenty points merely as a result of the acquaintance. And let’s be honest… If you’ve read this piece this far, there’s a ninety five percent chance he’s a lot smarter than you. He’ll make partner somewhere years later and find himself burned out in an industry he hates, surrounded by people he’d like to kill. You’ll both loathe your situations and commiserate, wishing you were in each other’s shoes. The only difference is you’ll be the guy taking a wild, reckless chance on a book making fun of the legal profession. He’ll be whining from the cabin of his boat.
In closing…
My advice? Think twice before you go to law school. Take a few years off after college to consider what you want to do with your life. Tend bar. Be a ski instructor. Get a fucking paper route… As an eminent jurist once noted when asked by a college student whether the young man should go into law, “[T]he world needs ditch diggers, too.” Say what you will about the calluses, I hear they keep real nice hours.
———-
1 I heard them all – from friends, family, neighbors. Every lawyer I talked to warned me not to go, or at least take a few years off before I did. I went anyway, straight out of school. You think you know everything when you’re twenty-two. You don’t know shit. You might actually be smarter at eighteen, before you’ve spent four years in the fantasyland of college.
2 This advice doesn’t apply to bar exams. In those conditions I advise being limber. I wouldn’t recommend it for the multiple choice section, but splitting a magnum of wine with a friend and laughing over old college stories the night before makes the essay portion go a lot more smoothly.
3 Everybody hits this once or twice in college. Leave the number of times vague.
good stuff, page.
PL: Thanks as always. I have not missed your other request, by the way. There’s just a ton of stuff going on, but I do not forget people who have read from the start.
Math or linear thinking…unlike a lot of the aspiring law crowd, that is me, I went in with the intention of doing the patent law thing (quit after one semester, imagine that). But Wall Street? I dunno, aren’t their hours just as long, or more?
While at the “college of law” though, I made sure to point as many people as I could towards the site, I was amazed that most had never heard of it. Hard to imagine you could go through the whole application process without hearing about tucker max or philalawyer. Most seemed terrified by my description, and wanted nothing to do with it. Here’s a thought: If you’re worried that reading a website is going to shake your confidence in your life plan, then maybe you need to think things through a little more.
Keep it up, long time reader (not trying to imitate the one above me, really), first time commenter. Can’t wait for the book.
PL: If you can hook a job on Wall Street or in Private Equity or any sort of finance making so much money down the road you might be able to make yourself financially secure early, my advice is to keep your expenses down and go for it. Get the money you need, get out and go do something you like and use the income from the money you’ve saved to make up the loss of income that often accompanies doing something fulfilling.
Don’t waste a linear, math-gifted mind. I can write, but being a finance whiz would have been so much more useful in life. No regrets. I mean, you get the cards you get. But if your cards can put you into a job in finance even in this tough market, take the ball and run.
PL: I really appreciate the advice. Christ almighty, in this job market it’s just downright hard to see the possibilities outside of the ultimate fall back career path of law school. As a 23 year old in that limbo of “figuring it all out”, God help me if there is another blog as good as yours declaring that an MBA is an even more unsatisfying pursuit.
PL: You shouldn’t believe such a website if you read one. An MBA is not a bad idea, but you should wait until you’ve worked for a year or so to get one.
On ditch digging:
If Ty Webb thinks it’s respectable, that’s good enough for me.
Fucking hilarious, all the way through.
PL: You know who gave me that advice? Mitch Cumstein, my college roomate.
Wow, the article that needs to be included with all law school apps.
For those that think this is an isolated hater of the profession, let me confirm that the law school process is the most innane, horrifying petrie dish of stunted personalities that can be mashed into a 120 student lecture hall.
Other reasons to avoid law school like the plague:
1. “Lawyer Money” is a fallacy for the majority of Law School Grads. Less than 10% of all law school grads land the jobs with the eye popping salaries that the money motivated dream will be the end result. Sure the $145,000 job is out there, but it aint gonna be yours (Unless you get into Harvard, Yale . . .) Try more like $55,000 per year, average schmo…
2. Debt extravaganza – Average cost of attendance at a law school, per year, is in the $35,000 range (if not more). Got that type of cash? If not, don’t forget to add the Bar Exam Study Course and related expenses for a summer of unemployment while studying ($7K). Scholarships? Are you kidding? Not with that 3.2 GPA you had at State U and your 161 LSAT Score. Result – $112K in debt, plus undergrad debt (average national is about $14K according to one survey) = $126K in debt. ($126K in Debt means approx $1100/mo loan payments even on extended payment plans). Not Applicable if you call your parents Mummy & Duddy while at the Union League.
3. “I want to go to Law School to help those less fortunate”. Great, take your $30K a year job with the local Free Legal Services Clinic, and figure how you are going to eat (see #2, above). These less fortunate also are not always the most rational and have a tendancy to ignore your advice, because hey, if you knew what you were doing, they figure they would have to pay (cynical, but surprisingly true).
4. Law School is 8th grade with Beer. Sure, you will know everyone in your class. Most will not be friends of any real measure. Because everyone knows everyone, everyone knows your business. Gossip among law students and lawyers is more prevalent that at the National Enquirer. The average woman is a troll, the average guy looks like someone who regularly attends “Magic, The Gathering” get togethers. The “Social Elite” exists at every school, and we will mock you and Poindexter mercilessly, behind you backs and to your face, should you deign to show up to our favorite hangouts when we’re drunk. Many schools are so competitive, that “your friends” will steal the Wisconsin Code Book you need for that stupid course on legal research, just to gain an advantage (or just rip out the pages). They will then laugh about the losers who are scrambling because the book or pages are missing.
5. “I didn’t get my “Mrs.” at college so I need to find a man who is going to be smart & successful”. Those that are attractive mates are already taken. Those that are not taken are either male whores with any troll woman that still maintains a heart beat, or are so socially inept that their silence is bliss. The divorce rate among lawyers is high, so is alcoholism and major depression (only dentists are more likely to attempt suicide in the professional world). Find a mate, and be divorced in 5 years….
6. “I like intellectual pursuits and what can be more intellectual that contemplating the law, the very fabric of our societal structure?” This is pure malarky. Lawyers don’t really do this stuff for a living (except professors). You end up discussing how a specific judge, client or oppossing counsel screwed up your case.
7. “It’s a guaranteed job” – Even at Cornell 12% don’t have jobs when they graduate. Can you get into Cornell? Probably not. At the University of Tennessee (still typically a top 100 school) your chances are a little better than 50/50. Still sure about that guarantee? (Per US News, 2000 class)
Still want to go to law school? Don’t say you weren’t warned. Go become a plumber. No Debt, similar salary and no tie required.
PL: I have nothing to add to this except to say, “Damn. You nailed it. Better than I did.”
Thanks. Still, must say, I envy your superior eloquence.
PL: Yeah, but there’s something to be said for unvarnished, clarified aggression. Mixed up with pile of nasty, hidden realities, you get the prose equivalent of nitroglycerin.
And I’d say you were eloquent. No wasted phrases there.
I am Lawrence Melwood. Talk about a Fight Club moment.
By the time I got through #3 I thought it was a sick joke. This post, along with the Shyster-Proofing post are the two most insightful and useful posts you’ve written.
As a 1L, this was both unsettling and hilarious at the same time. Well done. I’d tell my classmates about your blog, but I don’t want to upset the curve. They’ll discover you anyways when the book blows up.
PL: It is a sick joke. The industry is one big, sick joke. I’m so deranged from doing it while making fun of it I can’t recall if I’ve been writing or living a satire anymore. I guess that’s the rub, right? No way to be a self-aware lawyer and not view life as a dark comedy.
The thing about telling your classmates is, I’ll bet a bunch do know about it. Judging from reader feedback it seems this is a site people enjoy but rarely share with other law students or co-workers. It’s kind of a dirty inside joke for a lot of people who ought to know one another but don’t.
My parents always told me that I had the kind of mind that would make a good lawyer and encouraged me to think seriously about going into law school. I have NEVER heard this without laughing, even since I was in my early teens. You couldn’t convince me at 14, 20 or now that pushing paper in a shitty office is what my mind is worth. Unless I came from a rich family and had the opportunity to go to a top 10 school the odds that I would piss away the years of school doing drugs, drinking and fornicating were just too high. You will not be a trial lawyer like the ones you see on televison.
*Cuts himself off before his bitter rant starts deviating from the topic*
PL: Don’t get bitter. If you don’t like something, get even with it. Make fun of it. Much healthier.
Wow. After four years of undergrad and with graduation looming just around the corner, I recently realized how little I wanted to carry out my long-professed desire to be a lawyer. I’ve since turned to cooking as a career–because, hey, at least there you can vent your frustration with a razor-sharp knife or a hot steel saute pan. Thanks for helping me realize that I haven’t thrown my life away, as many in my family have said. Keep up the great work.
PL: Never listen to people who tell you have to be a doctor, lawyer or consultant to make it. The real estate developers I knew who barely graduated from state schools made twenty times more than most of those people. “Lawyer,” “Doctor,” “Professional”… Those are bullshit badges older middle class and some less informed upper middle class types think confer “prestige” on a person.
Open your restaurant.
I would second comments above that this is one of the most insightful things you’ve written. I don’t need to look very far for a brutal self-evaluation when, without ever having met me, you can do it for me. It’s nice to know how easy it is for the semi-trained eye to see through the bluffing inherent to any degree in the humanities.
I come from a family of lawyers and soldiers, and neither one of those professions is looking very attractive right now. I may turn my back on my roots, but I can probably mitigate all my guilt in one smooth step by buying JAG on DVD and punching myself in head as I watch it. Keep up the good work, so I don’t have to.
PL: The observations are universal and apply to so many of us and yet for some reason we never talk about it, like we’re not supposed to ever admit these things we all know everybody’s thinking. You’re not alone.
This entry reminded me of who I was ten years ago: a collegiate slacker/boozer living in a fantasy world, more clueless than I had been after graduating from high school. I learned the hard way that a 3.1 GPA in History (even from a “prestige” school) is not quite good enough for a solid Wall Street job, spent four years fucking around in a few different jobs in a couple different east coast cities, and managed to get into one good law school (that I really had no business getting into given my numbers) after writing a total bullshit essay about my work experience and applying to 20 different schools. I’ve been fortunate enough to find a pretty good career track (somewhat off the beaten path in the legal world). Thank God I don’t work with assholes and don’t have to deal with them on a day-to-day basis. I’m still not sure, however, if law school was worth the money, time, and misery. (Your description of the law school experience is frighteningly accurate.) If I know now what I did then, I probably would have started a business with the money I spent on law school tuition.
My point is that you are a wise man and your advice for college kids considering law school is solid. By the way, I’ve been reading your stuff since 2005 (my 3L year). That year, your writing helped me cope with a shitty, stressful period in my life, not to mention my obnoxious law school “friends.” I was very pleased to hear that you didn’t die in a car wreck after all! (Wasn’t the rumor that this crash occurred when you were between jobs, stocking the freezer with handles of Absolut every three days?) Looking forward to the book…
PL: Thanks. The sick bastard who started that rumor (or someone pretending to be him) commented a year or so ago, laughing about what he did. I have to admit, I loved the gag.
I have heard that taking some game theory classes can be very helpful in addition to obviously taking the prep courses for the LSAT. Do you think it would be worth while?
PL: Can’t hurt.
As I’ve stated before, your writing is amazing. I’m truly happy that there is another person out there who realizes how much bullshit there is out there and isn’t afraid to call it.
Since I’ve always been poor-as-fuck(tm), I’ve always done a roundabout way of doing things. I’ve NEVER purchased a CD or DVD or MP3, and I have to be a tightass with my cash because it’s not abundant. I also don’t believe in how the RIAA makes a shitload of money when they’ve kept the prices of CD’s and DVD’s artificially high, so yeah. That just said, I’m extremely tempted to purchase your book when it comes out and not just wait for an ebook version (which would thus promptly be pirated.)
Speaking of which, how do you feel about piracy, and have your views changed since you’ve become an author who can easily have his work pirated in the near future?
PL: The entertainment industry’s intermediaries are slowly diappearing. Cost of products will drop even further in the future.
Sadly, the medium responsible from bringing the best product these days – the internet – is also shortening our population’s already rodent-like attention span. Hence, in the future – near term – the responsibility for finding good product in a huge marketplace blasted with material by monetizers will fall on the buyer. Your cost in dollars for purchasing good entertainment will be replaced with lost time you’re going to spend looking for it.
But then, nothing worth having’s easy to acquire now, is it? There’s always some impediment standing in the way of what would be an otherwise simple transaction…
Piracy is flattering. I should hope to be pirated. It served the Dead well for many years to allow concert taping. You can’t fight it, so you might as well embrace it.
If you don’t have the money to buy my book, go ahead and steal it. The value of you telling someone else who will buy it how much you liked it is worth far more than the money I’d make off your purchase.
Sure enough, law school is a tough ride. I worked full-time through my entire undergrad, and have worked full-time now through three years of a part-time law degree. If I can do it and get by, anyone can do it.
The key is that I am doing just that: getting by. The firms coming to On-Campus Interviews won’t touch anyone under the top 10% of the class, and small/mid-size firm jobs are drying up faster than you can say ‘recession’, so much so that Lipschitz & Finkelstein, P.C. can afford to be as selective as Sidley Austin, if they wish, and people will be beating down their doors for the opportunity to make $65k a year.
Listen when I say this, those of you considering law school. DO NOT BE WOOED BY STATISTICS. Your law school’s literature says that the mean salary for graduates is $100k, and they can’t LIE about that, can they?
Like most everyone in the legal profession, your law school admissions staff isn’t being completely honest. Shoehorning 5 or 6 grads into V10 firms starting at 160k a year will balance out quite nicely with everyone else who’s starting salary will range from 35k to 70k. 70k sounds just fine you say? Well, unless mom and dad are paying for law school (in which case you’ve probably got a six-figure job waiting for you when you graduate and wouldn’t be reading this anyway), let’s not forget the ENORMOUS cost of law school which will have to be repaid from that salary…
I know you think you’re smart. Hell, I *know* I am, and people I know often tell me I am one of the smartest people they know. Trust me, law school is different, and no matter how smart you are, you will not make the cut. There are people there who just *click* with the way law school is done. They may not be any smarter than you are, and may even be considerably dumber. But they will fuck you UP on a law school exam, EVERY SINGLE TIME.
Still and all, I come from a blue collar lower middle class background where people still think being an attorney is like winning the lottery, and even if they are aware on some level that you may have a net worth of -200k, there is still some amount of respect given to the amount of work required to obtain a JD, if nothing else.
I went into law school with an eye on that brass ring, the big firm job. But as law school has progressed, I find that even were I to have the grades for those big firms to be looking at me, I don’t have the personality that would work in that environment. I’d be out on my ass in a few months anyway.
If you do decide to go to law school, do it because you want to be a lawyer, not because you want to get rich. There are hundreds of other ways to get a hell of a lot richer with a hell of a lot less work involved.
Finally, take a look at the new legislation signed into law last year that provides a modicum of financial relief for those of us inclined to government work or public service after law school. Maybe that’ll make the difference for you, and maybe some people will enter the work force on the side of good after law school. Me, I’m heading off to Air Force JAG. I’ve got prior enlisted military experience, and it’s the right fit for me.
I don’t mean this post to discourage anyone from law school, and I hope that I don’t come off sounding like one of the uptight, entitled prima-donnas I go to law school with. I just mean to say that the big bucks promise that law schools sell to prospective students is largely a myth, except for the schools themselves, who most certainly *do* make a shitload of money.
PL: Damn. Seems I tapped into some really strong sentiments with this piece.
wow, i was thinking about law school before this, now i feel like it’s taking four steps back to take two forward, so the question now that I know that I don’t want to go to law school is, do I still show up to my lsat’s? I haven’t taken any courses and I’m pretty sure I”m gonna get my ass handed to me, any advice?
PL: Take the test, and don’t make your decision solely on what you read. Find a couple friends or family members who practice and ask them what it’s like. Make sure you ask at least one litigator and one deal lawyer, so you get an eye for both sides of the business. And don’t ask some douche with a huge ego. Those people will always tell you how much they love it and how much they earn. It’s all bullshit. Most lawyers do alright, but a lot of them would have you believing they’re making bankers’ bucks and no, they’re not. Find a decent guy who’ll level with you and ask him whether he’d really do it all over again.
But don’t do it right out of school whatever advice you get. I can say that objectively. Nobody should walk out of college and straight into law school. And I’m not talking about simple job-related maturity issues here. I’m saying that law school has a way of narrowing people’s minds. The career makes a lot of people suspicious, scared, paranoid and mean. It can focus your brain on minutia and blind you to so much in life, all the while reinforcing the idea that “to be a lawyer is to live the law.” That’s bullshit, but a lot of young people buy into it.
Work first. See some of the world and expand your horizons. Then go into law if you want to.
For one of your previous readers, here’s the deal with getting an MBA: chances are that if you’re admitted to an MBA program out of undergrad, it’s not worth going to . 98% of the people who go to the top 20 programs have at least 3 years of work experience; they also have 700+ GMATs, 3.3+ undergrad GPAs and maintained some semblance of a professional job after undergrad.
If you do not get into one of the top programs, think seriously about doing something else. MBAs have become a dime-a-dozen, and if your not at a school that draws recruiters, you’re wasting your time and money.
Oh, great post, as always.
PL: Still, I think you’d have to admit, they’re much more useful than law degrees.
In law school now, and I really want to echo what PL said. If you want to be a lawyer, get a real job first, if only for a year. So many of the students (including the some of the best) here have fantasies of how the real world works, including a belief that hard work always wins. These kids are screwed when they graduate, even though they’ll be at the big name firms (I’m at a “name” school), because they have no idea of how the real world functions.
PL: What you know – 30%; Who you know – 30%; Luck – 20%; Smart work – 20%*
*Similar but not necessarily the same thing as hard work.
Did you ever consider seriously consider going into journalism? I love doing it on the college level, but the industry seems terrible.
PL: Not really, though I always knew I sort of saw things from that angle. I could never be objective, even though I write from what most consider a skewed journalistic angle.
I am a long time reader who has never commented. I am in finance and work with clients and their attorneys doing advanced planning. I was meeting with a client (an attorney) and his attorney going over my recommended strategies including trusts and business entities. At the end of the meeting they asked if I was an attorney as well. I said no but was thinking about going to law school at night to become better at what I do. They both immediately and definitively said “Please don’t, you will lose all of your creative ability”, I immediately decided against law school.
I love your writing and am looking forward to your book. Keep it up.
PL: They’re right. Very telling the comment would be seconded by a lawyer.
There are more zeros in the legal field than there are in Warren Buffet’s tax return.
I’m personally trying for a med school, so this only applies to me in the “Yeah, you’re an idiot compared to the rest of the country” sense, but I’ve sent this along to at least 3 people I know who were thinking law school for a career, for the classic bad reasons. Thanks for this.
Oh, and was the logic puzzle “D”?
PL: Thanks. I think D was the answer, but I have to find the original problem I based it on.
You know, a guy could begin to take stuff like this personally…
“You won’t meet many people you like or relate to in law school. It’s an asshole magnet, just like the career, and that’s kind of the drill – a necessary part of the education. Inevitably, however, you will run into “That Guy” who’s just like the people you hung out with in college. Avoid him like the plague. Do not become friends. Both of your class ranks will drop twenty points merely as a result of the acquaintance. And let’s be honest… If you’ve read this piece this far, there’s a ninety five percent chance he’s a lot smarter than you. He’ll make partner somewhere years later and find himself burned out in an industry he hates, surrounded by people he’d like to kill. You’ll both loathe your situations and commiserate, wishing you were in each other’s shoes. The only difference is you’ll be the guy taking a wild, reckless chance on a book making fun of the legal profession. He’ll be whining from the cabin of his boat.”
You should be glad I’m so well adjusted… And for the record, I was sitting on the sundeck of the boat, the cabin is only for fucking, storing the cooler and on really dark nights, for carrying the rare and lucrative “mexican square grouper”. Pizza! Pizza!
PL: Have some decency and put some fucking pants on. There’s a tour boat in the channel.
Careful with those fish… an endangered catch. I know people jailed for catching those buggers. The “pale ale and Grey Goose/Red Bull” crowd has fished those bastards near death a few times in their “mating season.”
I’m a 1L – 3 weeks in to law school and read this a few days ago. I took a year off from undergrad to work, and although I don’t regret it, it only reinforced my belief that I wanted to go to law school.
I’m going to a state school on scholarship, so that’s the biggest lesson I learned when I asked for advice, both online and in the real world. I heard: go to an elite school (I didn’t get in), go to a state school, or go to a school that’s paid for. I chose the last two… worst-case scenario when I walk out of here I can say ’see ya’ to the law and not worry about a crushing debt load. Of course there’s still an opportunity cost – I’m giving up three years of salaried work – but I’ve had a number of friends in recent weeks get laid off. Who’s to say that work is guaranteed anymore in this economy?
Frankly, there’s almost too much advice out there – corresponding with the number of lawyers, I guess. Who are prospective law students supposed to listen to? And a lot of the advice I read online is so negative to the law, which didn’t jive with what I heard from family friends who practice. Still, blogs like “Temporary Attorney: The Sweatshop Edition” really highlight the fact that the market is saturated, in certain areas at least.
I read “Stumbling on Happiness” a few months ago and greatly enjoyed it. I certainly recommend it to anyone worried about career choices, picking what they want to do, etc. Its a little bleak at first, but I think it has some good lessons.
In any case, PL, I’d love to see more law school-themed posts. What else do I have to do besides read blogs these days?
PL: Fuck? Get loaded in the morning? Don’t piss away the three year vacation you’ve got going. Ride that fucker for all it’s worth.
Hell, move to the beach. Get a job. Learn to ballroom dance. What won’t you do is the real question?
hmmm. is it possible to make it without a degree of any kind and no money to start with in this day amd age? even a bachelors isn’t really enough anymore. i’m a 2d animation major (you know, the kind of stuff disney used to do before toy story swallowed the industry) attending a commerial art school that i am less than excited about being a part of. i feel increasingly discouraged and find myself not wanting to put the necessary time in to my studies. i’ve already bounced from community college to a very conceptual art school (which was absolute bullshit) to this place (which isn’t necessarily bullshit but only useful to those with ambition). the students, for the most part, are all very dorky and it’s a depressing atmosphere. i don’t want to waste any more of my parents or my own money (especially my parents, who are pouring in the big bucks)on a $30,000/year school that i’m not even excited about going to. i just don’t know a) how to tell my parents all the money they’ve spent so far is a complete waste and b) what to do next (i refuse to move back home). any advice for a guy with no real passion or ambition but wants a comfortable life? that’s not possible, is it?
PL: Travel. Find a passion and then go into it. You have to have something you like doing. Even if you just like drinking, you can go become a micro-brewer. Jump in and find it.
And give up the notion that you have to have the cushy stuff mom and dad gave you to be satisfied with life. That’s what got me into the mess in the first place. If you like what you do every day you’ll be happy in a lot of ways, and more driven to succeed than you would be in any other endeavor.
Not sure if this was mentioned, but ABA has a new rule for all accredited law schools. All students must attend 80% of their classes. Love the stories and can’t wait for the book.
PL: Well, that’s a rotten pile of shit. They charge the students outrageous fees for what should be at most a two year almost correspondence level education and then have the nerve to force the kids to waste their days listening to academic gibberish that has no relation to the actual profession? The only way I could see any benefit to that rule would be through addition of a complimentary policy dictating that 80% of all law professors be adjuncts who can actually teach about the profession operates. That would be a law school worth attending.
Well, would you do it all over again? I’m 10 years out, with the loan payoff date in sight, comfortably ensconced in an inhouse legal dept, having left big philly international law firm as a senior associate. Law firm life was pretty miserable, but, if I’m honest with myself, I learned a lot about people, about how much of the work world doesn’t give a shit about you, and I did learn a good amount about being a lawyer. Other than the law part, I learned alot of the same things when I was a bartender between college and law school. Learning to eat shit is vital in any profession. You may be a big swinging dick at college, but you’re just a rookie everywhere else. I think you need to have a very strong sense of who you are before you go to law school and then into a law firm. Otherwise, you’ll just morph into someone who is a terrible person to be around. I’ll tell you, it wasn’t until a good eight months or so after leaving the firm that I started to recognize the guy doing the running monologue in my head again. Now, I’m a transactional guy, and, while the work can get boring sometimes, sometimes it is not. I work with a good group of law firm refugees, really just normal people who happen to be lawyers. I don’t think they’re going to make a movie about my life, but, at 36 with a family, I don’t care about a lot of the bullshit I cared about when I was 22. Would I do it again? Life is good now, but, still, all I can say is “maybe.”
PL: Yes, but only because doing what I did caused me to meet my wife. That removed, no.
I’m one of those arrogant sorts who always thought I had to make a difference of some sort, even if it was just writing a bunch of drunk stories. I think I see too much, or perhaps too little. In either direction, I would never have been able to be happy without coughing up a book or script of some kind. I’ve also been keenly aware of death since I was little and the clock in the office drives me mad…
Involved in Software Licensing for years, have a knack for understanding the legalese in all the agreements. Also involved in contract negotiations and other business deals involving legal departments. Not interested in Firm work, would rather be in-house at technology company, specializing in IP. Have the worst undergrad transcript known to man – last in class at big public U, and can’t take a standardized test to save my life, but had the best time. Non ABA school in area offers part time program and no LSAT required. Been sucessfull in business world, can that suceess jump to legal profession?Is it worthwhile approaching 40 to jump into this mess? Some attorney friends say to do it, I’m not sure.
PL: That question is so subjective. I’d really have to know you to know if you’d be successful at it. Generally, yes, business ability can translate to success in law, but why would you want to jump into a hierarchy where you billed your time like a factory worker if you’re already a success in business? The future for law is not great. The future for business is always good for a person who can shift from job to job. Law is more about specialization. It can be very limiting. My general advice would be to use your legal degree to compliment your current job. Leverage it, don’t chase it into a position most people are trying to escape.
Since I love this blog so much, at times I think Philly is my twin, given our similar worldview and experiences (except I stayed away from hallucinogens), I am going to give some advice I give to very few out there. This advice can get you in the door of an AmLaw 200 firm, even if you are a white guy with a degree from a 50ish ranked law school. Since those of you who read this blog cannot be all that bad, and some might even be 10-percenters, here it is (If some Myron is just reading this thread–fuck you–this advice is not for you).
So you are thinking of law school. As some have noted above, why not work as a paralegal in a law firm first. But not any ole law firm, since most are dead-ends. Move to DC and work in a firm with arcane regulatory specialties. (other cities have these but DC is the mecca) Most decent sized firms have them, a veritable alphabet of obscure agencies that they practice before, some of whom most educated people never heard of–FERC, SEC, NRC, FCC, CFTC, STB, etc. Work for a year learning the ropes in one of these practices.
Then–if you still want to enter this flawed profession having seen it firsthand– go to law school in the evening, you have 5 good law schools to choose from, 4 of which are largely free of assholes. In most cases, you will not only have a paying job while in school, but a guaranteed job as a first year. If you are in the more snooty places that never hire staff that goes to law school,–I guess for fear you might later relate to staff as fellow humans and not lower life forms beneath you–do not worry, other firms will jump at the chance to get someone who knows their obscure area of law and can hit the ground running. I only hire those with experience, no seven -and -outs for me, I could care less where you went to law school or what save the world shit your parents paid for you do during college summers. Best of all, if you really come to hate law, as so many of us do, you can then jump in-house to a company in that field, and assuming you have any common sense, maybe even to a non-legal position.
PL: I have nothing to add. Having “litigated” before a Fed agency and learned the hard way what a universe they can be unto themselves, and how much value knowing the administrative and bureaucratic framework can be worth in those scenarios, this, I think, is a great way into a good legal gig, if you still want that after seeing what it would be like.
And DC’s a great, fun town. The next best place to NYC, in my opinion.
That was amazing. Describes my first 3 years of college, probably my last, and my law school applications. haha
PL: College… I think I majored in studies of Caribbean Sporting Culture. I’m serious. I think I took three classes in Cricket. Cricket.
Wow FrattyLite hit the effing nail on the head…
As a 2L who clawed and suffered through her first year getting – by far – the worst grades of my life while having – by far – the worst time of my life, I tell everyone considering law school to THINK TWICE. Take a year off. Work somewhere. Travel. Enjoy your early 20s. I’m only 23 and feel about 40, and I attribute that entirely to law school. And the comment about losing all creativity? My mother was an artist with the Corcoran and I grew up painting my entire life… but haven’t been able to come up with anything inspired in the last 14 months.
I’m now on the law school admissions board (I thought it would be funny, and somehow got on) and my only goal is to weed out the candidates who truly don’t belong in law school for their own good. I wish someone had saved me.
With my non-top 15% (or 20%… or 40%) GPA, I’ll never find a job. Nevermind that I’m getting published in the business journal, or that my legal writing grades never dropped below a 3.5 (with a 2.6 curve). Without a GPA that begins with a “3″, I’m fucked. Me and my $80k in loans (which, comparatively, is nothing!!) are fucked.
P.S. Yes, law students are now required to attend 80% of their classes, which works out to being allowed to miss 7 classes a semester. And a lot of professors are banning laptops from the classrooms too.
PL: You’re not fucked. Nobody’s fucked at 23. Yeah, it might suck, but stop thinking inside their box. Consider that you have 50-60 years left to live. So you fucked up and made a bad start. You can still get around it. But you have to consider your life differently, I think. Consider time as your only real resource and make all decisions based on that. I’m not going to say that’s easy. Man, it’s not. Most folks don’t do that, and it runs against a lot of what you’re told to do. People will even tell you it’s irresponsible and selfish… Maybe it is. It might cause you to do selfish shit. Hell, you might say “fuck it” to your loans and run off to another country to be an artist. I guess that’s dicking this system. Maybe it’s dicking society. But no one’s going to argue its irrational to avoid doing something you don’t want to do for the rest of your life just because you made a bad decision early when you didn’t know any better.
Of course, that’s just a radical example. There are a million other less radical ways to get around your problem. You just have to start planning now. If you were sharp enough to get into the mess you’re in, you’re sharp enough to find a career option that will get you out. But for God’s sake, stop listening to the people in the school. Ninety percent of those poor bastards couldn’t even practice law. Their advice isn’t worth the wind that carries its syllables.
I’ll explain the rest in a short piece tomorrow night.
PL, don’t know if you know about this, or care, but the really funny (and unique) comedian, Demetri Martin had aspirations of going to Law school since he was a little kid. Hated it the first week. He mentions it towards the end here, which leads into a skit
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hUHDIOazIU&feature=related
I thought it was interesting. That whole act is more interesting than it is balls-out funny, but his routine, “Person” is hilarious.
PL: He’s a bit cute, but he is really funny. It is a hilarious act.
Re: FrattyLite
I’m a 2L at the University of Tennessee, and the employment rate is much, much higher than what you stated (figures between 85-95%). We’re also working hard to break the top 50 (currently 53) and I really think we can do it with our new dean. Alot has changed since 2000 ; )
PL: Calculate the average starting salary removing the top five percent of the class.
Take that number (A) and subtract from it the average graduate’s yearly student loan repayment cost (B).
Take the resulting number (C) and divide that by 2200. Walking out the door after graduation, that’s the average value of the degree on a dollar per hour basis.
Who is your literary agent? What agency? I assume they are out of NYC, correct?
PL: Byrd Leavell, http://www.Waxmanagency.com
PL, yes, D is the answer.
I actually enjoy that sort of problem. Maybe that’s a symptom of some medical condition.
At least I have 2 years to think before making that mistake.
PL: People will tell you with the economy faltering (and yes, this will be a long slump) now is the time to run to a place like law school. These are the sorts who tend to be wrong a lot, but they’ll never be more wrong than they are with that advice. Every uncreative soul will run to the paths of least resistance. In a market so saturated the dropping value of the skill is only going to accelerate.
I don’t know where the next bubble will be, but it will emerge in the next two years (or at least hints of what it will be). Keep your eyes open for it and do everything you can to get in early. And if you’re lucky enough to get in early, remember not to be a pig. make what you need and never believe you’re in “a new paradigm.” It won’t be true.
To the law school hopefuls… Guys, PL and the others who added to his line of thought here all knew this before they did law school and they did it anyway. Do you think someone bright is going commit to those arduous years on a whim? Right, so let that speak for itself.
PL: Do you think bright people are incapable of bad decisions? Exhibit A in my rebuttal: Wall Street.
Do you think bright people can’t feel they have no options and consequently take a gamble on a graduate degree only to find out it wasn’t a good play later?
Do you think “bright” holds a 1:1 ratio in regard to “excellent decision making capability”?
How many different varieties of bright do you think exist in the world? A research scientist is brighter than me. Would he best me in an argument? Are you suggesting my ability to write is proof that I am too smart to have made a poor decision about law school? If so, thank you.
Or are you planning on attending law school and uncomfortable being challenged on the decision?
The only advice on law school offered here to anyone with the capacity to understand satire is “think for yourself.” Is that a rebuttable argument?
PL, I couldn’t resist posting this the second I finished reading: http://www.cnbc.com/id/26841403
By the way, I went to the B&N on Rittenhouse and they didn’t have a copy yesterday. Better get on that shit! However, Borders did come through for me.
Looking forward to reading some of the stories that were not posted online.
PL: It’s meant to be read straight through. Jump in and out and you might miss the connectors.
As to B&N, all I can say is, this is what you get when bricks and mortar retailers try to beat 150% performance out of 2/3 the employees they need. Welcome to the new economy. Big corporations filled with exhausted workers half-assing everything and shit-scared of deviating from order for fear of being fired. A consumer Idiocracy in the making.
You want to fit in over the next 20 years? Start huffing laughing gas every morning before you leave the house. You’ll want to be operating around a 10 year old’s mentality, just to fit in.
“Brawndo! It’s got electrolytes!!!!”
Your post, and the advice from others, gave me more insight than any pre-law advisor was able to provide in 3 years.
I don’t want to graduate because I still have no idea what I want to do with my life. I have decent grades, but part of me just wants to dick around for awhile. Tend bar. Take cooking classes. Travel places. Have sex with many women.
Would I be making a mistake if, after obtaining my degree, I get this out of my system?
And perhaps after, doing nothing that has to do with my degree? Maybe save some money and open up a bar to take advantage of the hoards of young alcoholic lawyers unsatisfied with how they spent their time and money?
Sorry if that last part seemed smug. My life right now looks like an epic failure.
PL: You’re life’s not a failure. That’s just ridiculous.
If you don’t want to stay in career tied to your major, start looking for something else to do, asap. When you get out, shoot for it, and never let anyone tell you to do anything else.
Just remember – keep your expectations sensible. You know your limits. Observe them. Nobody should run off and say, “I’m going to be a movie star!” or “I’m going to be CEO and make seven figures by 30!”
You sound realistic. You’ll be fine. Best of luck with whatever it turns out to be.
Hey PL,
Love your stuff, but I’m curious what you make of my situation:
Let me preface by saying that I agree wholeheartedly with almost your entire assessment of the legal academy and profession. In fact, I used to “run” the pre-law organization at my undergrad (purely resume puffery – we had like 30 members). This was a state school and most of the members were in line to get rejected across the board, or end up at some terrible, low-ranked school out of which they’d never be anything more than a glorified paralegal. These poor souls had no business even passively considering law school. The best I thought I could do was tell them, without ever saying it, not to go. I gave presentations, wrote articles, referred them to your site, etc. I don’t know whether it stuck or not, but by the time my tenure was over I was considered the biggest, most pompous SOB to ever chair that organization.
I still went to law school myself, for many of the reasons that lead most of us there – no relevant skills in other disciplines, worthless undergrad degree, etc., etc. But for some bizarre and undetectable reason I’ve managed to avoid the angry backlash.
I see the malaise setting in with my classmates every day, yet I feel fine. I go to a very top school, get good grades, study much less than the 90% or so of the class beneath me, and am just as debauched as you, my friend (coke benders, wicked sweats and shakes in class – no need to remind you I’m sure).
My question to you is, am I insane? To an extent I enjoy the mental masturbation that is learning the law. I’ve just always loved words. On some level you must have experienced at least a little enjoyment in reading some of the more snippy opinions in law school. You’re a great writer, even if you loathe legal practice you must appreciate reading some of those arguments, no?
Even with that said, I skip a ton of class, get just as fucked up as I did in college, and if my ranking doesn’t suddenly tank I’ll be on track for a coveted federal clerkship and probably segway into academia afterwards.
I must sound like one of those “kids in his early twenties who knows exactly what he wants to do with his life,” who one “wouldn’t want to have a drink with.” Maybe I am, but I’ll tell you that the top ranked kids think it’s some sort of vicious joke that the profs think my work is as “good” as theirs. And for those who don’t know my GPA, they probably think I’m at the very bottom of the class. I don’t wear blazers or horn-rimmed glasses, and I certainly don’t pun in Greek. I spend exponentially more time in the bar than the library, and as much as reading law when necessary is tolerable to me, I don’t give a shit what that 23 year old acne-clad virgin has to say about penumbras and emanations when he corners me at power hour on Friday night.
Point being, I also came here primarily for a lack of other options. And I can sorta see why it ruins so many good people. I just have no idea why I’ve been such a strange exception.
No one should come to law school thinking my case will be theirs. It won’t. This shouldn’t be happening to me, even.
The only thing I can foresee fucking me is my lifestyle. If and when people who “matter” see me twitching like a crack-whore on some Tuesday morning, things might take an ugly turn.
How did you conceal (if you did) your recreational activities from your higher-ups? Or was it just not apparent with you?
PL: Hell, no. You’re not insane. You’re lucky. I think your skill and ability coupled with the ability to see through people will serve you well. Just remember, that seeing through people thing can be as much a blessing as a curse. One can easily find himself analyzing ways to fire half the people around him and streamline all the processes in what is an intentionally inefficient profession. Once you start thinking about it as an acting gig more than a real job where you do anything important, you can get awfully jaded. But in fairness to law, outside some medical practices and some entrepreneurial endeavors, that’s basically the description of any corporate job.
I concealed my lifestyle by being openly sarcastic. People assumed I had a dark sense of humor. And the fact is, I think most of the people I worked with loathed the career as well, so my attitude didn’t stand out much. When I needed to, however, say around clients or in court or around partners who didn’t share that gallows humor openly, I could be pretty chipper. The best trick is to deflect disgust and boredom with the annoyance of the job toward an opponent. Instead of railing against the job around the office, let an opponent act as a proxy and profess irritation with him in place of the job. This transference makes managers think you’re really into the job while allowing you to openly vent. It’s kind of fun. You can be thinking, “God, I’m so fucking bored with this shit work” while talking to a partner, but what’s coming out of your mouth is “God, I fucking hate (insert opponent)… He’s such an impossible dick.” A little self-preservation trick to keep you sane.
Oh, and PL, have you heard of Doug Litowitz? He wrote a book called “Beyond One L: The Destruction of Young Lawyers”. It’s good stuff, though not widely received, I gather.
You guys should team up and jointly spread the word.
PL: Thanks, but I think I’m heading back toward more straight comedy stuff/journalism/social critiques. I’m all but through with law. If I got into critiquing the field for a living I’d wind up debating with the biggest crowd of annoying tools on the planet. Better to laugh at them.
Don’t law schools check up on what clubs you were in and what not? Or am I being naive? If say, they did check and you were caught lying on your application, would they tell other schools and “blacklist” you? Thanks.
PL: Respectfully, I think you’re missing a bit of the thrust here. But in the spirit of trying to answer, I don’t know on the first, and I doubt it on the second.
I finished your book a week or two ago, and funny to say, it did help/encourage me to party and go to work hung over. Where was this book when I was in my last year of college? I’m only 23 (graduated a year ago) and have decided on my “route” without the help of this book, but it sure would have been a nice reinforcement to know this type of thinking was going on.
My Dad is a water rights lawyer, he works long hours, and is never ahead. He’s always busy. As interested as I might be in this industry, I would never want to commit to that life style, work hard and work hard. Where is the fun? I’d rather work for the city/state and get my pension and have a timeline as to when I can retire.
Anyhow, I just wanted to write in and say thanks for keeping me entertained while I’m on the job hunt and trying to figure out what I don’t like! I’m writing in from work, and I spend most of my time here looking for other jobs. Your posts/and book make it easier to laugh at the others racing around in the scuffle and I guess I’m just lazy!
PL: You’re welcome. And tell your old man to never forget what Vonnegut said: “We were put on this earth to fart around, and never let anyone tell you any different.”