Tweet
and
Don’t Go to Law School — Find Out Why |
|
| By: Crane-Station Wednesday August 29, 2012 5:07 pm | |
Don’t Go to Law School — Find Out Why |
|
| By: Crane-Station Wednesday August 29, 2012 5:07 pm | |
and
About MyFDL
MyFDL is the community site of progressive political blog Firedoglake. Anyone can participate by writing a diary, commenting on others’ diaries, or joining groups to find other people in your area. Content posted to MyFDL is the opinion of the author alone, and should not be attributed to Firedoglake.
News. Community. Activism.
Firedoglake is a member-supported organization.
Help us continue our work for as little as $45/year.
36 Comments
Even more of the God-awful ugly truth. Law School Career Counseling:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zsTHY4g2J8
These are brilliant! and, dreadfully, awfully dismal.
Definitely the ugly truth, for real. Sometimes satire tells it, thank you for stopping by.
I always wondered why it is presumed that one need have a high intelligence to become a lawyer or a doctor. When one need only look towards congress – most of whom a lawyers and some doctors – to see that this is obviously NOT the case.
Tell it, c.
Some of the stuff coming out of congress is mind-boggling!
For several months I’ve been following the discussion over at Professor Paul Campos’ blog Inside the Law School Scam. http://insidethelawschoolscam.blogspot.com
These two videos succinctly and accurate describe the law school situation, but it’s instructive to read his blog as well.
Of course everyone knows why people become business majors. It’s because they flunked kindergarten and could not even get into PE.
Thank you so much, I am going to check out this blog. My interest in this subject is personal from a couple of angles. My husband was enticed to teach at a start-up, but he became a whistle- blower on some corruption where the deans were, among other things, stealing student loan money to the tune of millions. But also, my son is a graduate of Georgetown Law in DC, and has passed the California (and more recently, Maryland I believe) bar exams, and believe it or not, he is finding it nearly impossible to find work.
It is very, very difficult for law grads right now, and it is heartbreaking to hear the students’ and graduates’ real-life stories.
Thank you for the link and the comment.
LOL! Come to think of it, I skipped kindergarten all together. I think that’s when my whole life went off the rails!
“Legal thinking,” as taught in law school, is a big step down from the serious academic scholarship previously learned in school or on their own. Likewise, “legal writing” is a formulaic enterprise which is a big step down from good writing in other fields. (Learning “acceptable” legal according to law review criteria will ruin your general writing style). All of law school is a system of “dumbing down” in accordace with rigid instructions imposed from the top of this hidebound profession. Those who accomplish this most successfully are stars. Many truly brilliant people are repulsed and quit the field.
It is no coincidence that John Marshall, America’s most brilliant Supreme Court Justice, never went to school (of any kind) and Abraham Lincoln, another truly great legal mind, attended only first grade. Both learned law through their own reading and on the job.
Sorry for the bad proof reading in the above post (the negative emotions brought up by recalling law school must have done this to me). Here is a corrected version, for those with any interest:
“Legal thinking,” as taught in law school, is a big step down from the serious academic scholarship one has previously learned in school or on one’s own. Likewise, “legal writing” is a formulaic enterprise which is a big step down from good writing in other fields. (Learning “acceptable” legal writing according to law review criteria will ruin your general writing style–I speak from personal experience). All of law school is a system of “dumbing down” in accordance with rigid instructions imposed from the top of this hidebound profession. Those who accomplish this most successfully are stars. Many truly brilliant people are repulsed and quit the field.
It is no coincidence that John Marshall, America’s most brilliant Supreme Court Justice, never went to school (of any kind) and Abraham Lincoln, another truly great legal mind, attended only first grade. Both learned law through their own reading and on the job.
A law degree used to be a potential ticket to a higher pay job. The legal prof has been hyped by Hollywood & some writers as this mythical sexy gig that pays buckets & stacks of cash, and all the lawyers are hot and attract other hotties, while leading exciting & glamorous lives living in expensive huge homes & driving fancy expensive cars. What a load.
I’ve worked in the legal field for most of my career in what’s known as admin or support functions. I started law school years ago but never finished bc I realized that I really didn’t want to practice law. Even back in the day, to be really successful (and to earn the big bucks), it was mostly a huge mind-numbing grind. Most of the lawyers that I knew worked insane hours, had almost no personal life, and were mostly bored with their jobs & often were pretty nerdy (not that there’s anything wrong with that, but glamorous? hardly).
But they bought the notion of being the big dog, so they had a type of fancy lifestyle to maintain (mainly sending kids to private school). At least, some years ago, though, there WAS the opportunity to make, if not huge bucks, a good enough living as a lawyer (or even a paraprofessionl) to support a decent lifestyle for yourself and family.
These days, forget it. Even the high rollers are finding work thin on the ground and hard to find. Kids going to law school today had better ONLY be going to first tier law schools (ie, the Ivies mostly) AND had better ONLY be graduating in the top 10% of their class. Being in the top 1% is better, along with being on law review.
Otherwise, like these videos show, you’ll graduate, have giant student loan debt, and if you’re lucky you’ll be a barrista. Not kidding. And good luck going out on your own to practice law. Unless you’ve got a clientele built up, it’s really hard to find clients who can pay what you need to pay off your loans.
My advice: don’t go to law school. It’s not worth it. A lot of legal work is already being off-shored to India, where the pay rates are much lower.
Thanks, CS, for the videos. They’re spot-on, funny in a black humor way, and instructive.
Teaching in all American law schools, with the partial exception of Yale Law and some new, more vocationally oriented programs, is modeled on the “Socratic method” system developed by Christopher Columbus Langdell at Harvard Law beginning in 1870. Langdell’s method gradually replaced the apprenticeship system in effect before his time.
Langdell was a right-wing reactionary. His approach was to make students read and analyze appellate decisions, ignoring the nitty-gritty of legal practice. The result was that law students graduated, and continue to graduate, with almost no ability to actually practice law. They have, however, imbued a corporatist, cut-throat, conformist ethic.
Along with the adoption of Langdell’s “Socratic method,” law schools have sought to discourage entry into the legal profession among those less economically fortunate individuals through progressive, and needless, upgradings in educational pre-requisites. It is my understanding that in most of Europe as well as in Israel, law is an undergraduate program. In the United States as late as the 1920s and 1930s, students typically entered law school after two years of college. Now college graduaton is mandatory for law school entrance. Furthermore, and more significantly, the cost of law school has increased exponentially in recent years, typically amounting to $70 thousand per year or more. This puts legal careers out of reach for middle-and working-class students who are not willing to assume astronomical debts to be certified in a field which, as the cartoons above show, will probably not even lead to a job after graduation.
Thank you for your excellent comment and perspective as an attorney, caleb36. I have personally witnessed some of the dumbing down and astonishingly bad legal writing, in my own bizarre legal case. For example, and I am absolutely not kidding in the least, I have seen way better writing coming out of self-taught jailhouse lawyers, who often present well-written, cited, and well-researched briefs that are better than what some of the attorneys in this area produce.
Excellent points at comment 13 as well. The debt is astronomical, and students, even from excellent schools do not have a lot of practical knowledge. I think almost everyone expects to learn on the job after graduation, but that process is greatly hindered when graduates cannot find work. You see the same thing in some areas of medicine. Some of the ivory-tower-type nursing schools, for example, turn out graduates who cannot function until after they have worked for a while. Problem is now, the debt. People graduate, the clock starts ticking, the living expenses mount, the gap on the resume widens.
Interesting history on the teaching methods, thank you.
Well, thank you, as someone in the legal field, you know then. Another thing I did not mention but it is an elephant: corruption. The legal climate today is piled high and deep with it, it’s like a mine field. I think it is expecting a bit much for new grads to adjust their entire belief system so that they can live with and function in corrupt environments, just my .02.
Oh yeah! Well I didn’t even touch the tip of the ice berg of corruption in the legal industry, but it’s rife, sad to say. Probably always has been, but since the “practice” of law became more meritorious for a small window of time, the cut-throat nature of having to win & win BIG often results in illegal stuff happening.
One high-power atty that I knew definitely arranged for evidence to be tampered in a high-profile, high-stakes case he was working on. Ended up dis-barred. Happens probably more than anyone knows.
These days, the real scam, as evidenced in these videos, are law schools and how they “advertise” to gullible students that they can still get “jobs” if they get their JD. Not so much. Someone, above, gives a link to Prof Paul Campos’ blog about the law school scam. I’ve read that blog. There are others of a similar nature.
Fortunately word is getting out, and the law schools are tending to contract as their admissions go down. I know a lot of good people working in law schools, so it’s hard to see some getting laid off of jobs. But the reality is that there simply isn’t enough work anymore to support the huge cadre of lawyers that used to be graduated every year. It’s good that admissions are dropping. Potential students need to realize what their prospects are. A JD equips you for pretty much not much other than lawyering or related fields, like teaching. And govt lawyer jobs are being cut all over the place, so that “refuge” has shrunk dramatically with few new positions opening up.
Thanks again.
The rule of the lawyer’s client: “Don’t tell me I can’t do something because it’s illegal. Figure out how I can do what I want to do.”
In fact, as anyone working can tell you, intelligence, experience, ethics, and creativity are disqualifications for almost any job these days. Prime requirements are (1) following orders; (2) working 32-40 hour days; (3) accepting pay in the lowest decile of your profession; (4) being trained in specifically what that manager’s job is and having 2-5 years experience doing it.
Wow. Just wow. I really like the Campos blog. Learning a lot. Thanks to you as well.
C-S – as I watched the videos, and then as I read the comments, what struck me was that this helps explain a few things.
If you look at the education and professions that make up our congress, what you see is something like “lawyer, lawyer, lawyer, doctor, lawyer, lawyer, lawyer, lawyer, business person, lawyer, lawyer, lawyer, distinguished military service person, lawyer, lawyer,” etc. What you do not see are things like biologists, climatologists, engineers, social psychologists or any other educated profession.
With the high cost, the dumbing down of education, the corruption within the legal profession, etc – it really isn’t much of a wonder why we are in the mess we are in. Look what profession is crafting our policies – with little to no knowledge outside of their small little areas of education, which just cannot grasp the whole of a thing.
Thank you for the post C-S, and thank you for all the informative comments that each has contributed above.
rec’d
I know you are speaking the truth. The horrible truth. Other thing is, in the teaching arena, which used to be secure, it is almost impossible to get tenure, and in fact, more and more adjuncts are being used.
I attended a liberal arts college back in the day when education was highly valued and now that has all changed for the worse, IMO.
So now, we have people who spend huge amounts of money on higher education, work like slaves just to get by, have about a ten-minute half life if anything happens, and benefits are disappearing, if, and this is a big if…if they know the right people to get the job in the first place.
I have heard of law grads working for free to do things like internships, just to get the experience, and no one should have to work for free in this country.
Excellent point and way of looking at the ‘whys.’ Why are things in such a mess and in such utter disconnect from the passing public? Great analysis, and thank you for the rec and comment.
The Clark Kerr-ization of American higher education. Totally visible by the Free Speech Movement at Berkeley in 1964. It’s dang hard being a propet.
In our house we call this “intellectual share cropping”.
Law is sorta a johnny-come-lately to this trend. And the AAUP can no longer enforce tenure because the supply of PhDs exceeds the demand (the reverse of the 1960s). A bachelors degree in a science now makes you unemployable even as a lab tech (overeducated).
Welcome to the information plantation.
Tell it, TarheelDem. You speak the truth in every comment.
It’s true. Here is what my son, a new grad, basically said to another 2L who is also concerned:
Name of game is specialty.
Pick 2 or 3 areas of specialization that are really interesting. Make that a specialty. Do an internship, full time during school with a small firm if possible. Not just a summer internship, a during-the-year type thing. Pick courses tailored to this specialization.
Start now. Slam the market with resumes and beg attorneys to do research with them for free. Kick ass at the work. Write articles if at all possible.
End result: “I am the fucking man when it comes to such-and-such specific specialty of law. This is what I have wanted to do from square one, and I am an expert at it. I have written articles in this specialty with so-and-so, and here are my writing samples.”
Government jobs, posted at USA Jobs, are almost impossible to get right now. They typically get 400 applications for each position that they intend to hire internally for anyway, but post just to cover themselves. The competition for gov’t jobs right now is roughly equivalent to winning the lottery.
My son explains that this has been his experience. I think he also monitors CraigsList pretty closely.
Its prevalent in all the professions, if my kids and their friends are any indication. Rare is the young one with parents that could afford to send them to college – ’08 knocked out many a college investment fund as well everything else that was stolen.
One young man I know, has an advanced degree – and is living on people’s couches (mine is one of them) in order to start his own business (advanced degree in digital media and communication).
Another young woman we know, a single mom, is working on a counseling degree – her parents, literally, are providing the professional space and platform, in order that she has her own client base, once her period of working under supervision is complete. This will mean, down the road (not quite done with classes yet) working more hours than the standard 40 hour work week until her own practice is up and her supervision work is completed. She is unclear what exactly will have to go – the hours she volunteers in her child’s classroom, or her role as the scout leader for her child’s group. I wonder if it won’t be her sanity.
Another young woman, took a job at Hooters!! Why Hooters? Because a % of her educational costs is reimbursed her, based upon her grades. So far, even with working full time, and attending classes full time, she maintains a 4.0 GPA.
Another young man has a plan to keep his income so low, over the next 25 years, as well as to keep in good standing with the holders of the loans, such that he will by pass the need to pay them off at the end of the 25 year period. “If I get a good enough paying job I will be impoverished b/c it will all go to loan repayment, while I live with my parents. If I keep my income low, I will still be poor, but at least I won’t be living with my parents well into my 30′s and 40′s.” Who can blame him? Who wants to live with their parents after a certain point … like 22?
These are just a few of the stories I am witness to.
So it is across the board and part of this generations experience. Personally, the days of working for someone else may be over for this generation – if they are to survive they may have to invent their own work.
Every system is so broken, including the system that provides a way for young adults to enter the world as independent, contributing members of their world.
A woman far wiser than I, once said that every culture has an unwritten rule to provide for and to protect their young. That when a culture fails to do so, that culture will not survive. We are teetering.
Speaking of idiotic and incompetent lawyers, we also need to give an honorable mention to idiotic and incompetent and partisan JUDGES. The south is full of them.
So sorry to hear about your son’s situation, CS. Yes, it’s HORRIBLE out there. I hope Campos’s blog will provide evidence of this reality and some support in mutual suffering.
I posted a link to this over there. Hope it drives some traffic your way. Terrific “videos.”
C-S, if you want to be REALLY scandalized, go over to Campos’s blog & look for the entries on the salaries of law professors: HUNDREDS of thousands of dollars. And law school deans make in the MILLIONS.
This is one reason tuition has escalated far faster than the rate of inflation. I really had no idea the salaries were this high. [And compare the "work" law professors do with the work life of a high school or elementary school teacher!!!!]
Full disclosure: I went to law school and practiced for 7 years before retiring. This was in the 70s – 80s. As a CA resident, tuition at my U of California law school was $575 — I think per year, but could have been per semester. Can’t BELIEVE what they’re charging now: thus the humongous, non-dischargeable-in bankruptcy debt, and no job whose earnings could pay it off either.
70% of university faculty today are now adjuncts.
Q: “How many lawyers does it take to change a lightbulb?”
A: “There is nothing wrong with that lightbulb and my client demands an immediate apology and damages!”
Got the T shirt. First thing you must learn: Lawyers are the wolves of humanity. The rest are sheep. Sheer ‘em or eat ‘em as necessary.
It was too close to vampirism for my Karma.
This is so distressing, but not really surprising.
I spent many years in the admin side of law firms, so I am fully aware of
how flawed lawyers and our legal system are. However, there’s a lot of good there … well, some good.
If you do away with public interest lawyers and plaintiffs’ lawyers who will work on a contingent fee basis, there will be no one left to bring the cases against folks like Monsanto and Enron and BP (either criminal or civil). No lawyers, no need for tort reform. But lots of need for prisons because who will represent the accused?
Good points. I would like to add that since in our country our social safety nets and big business regulations are by far the weakest compared to other developed countries, public interest lawyers and plaintiffs’ lawyers who will work on a contingent fee basis were all we Americans had to correct serious wrongs.
We’re definitely NOT going toward improved regulations or social safety nets, so without public interest lawyers and plaintiffs’ lawyers who will work on a contingent fee basis, we’re quite defenseless.