An ivory tower that touches the moon

In this blog I will talk about the beast that stabs backs, law school. Truly I do not know where to begin discussing it. This might be the only blog post where I discuss it so I want to do so thoroughly. Naw I’ll break it up into two. And then that’ll be it. Forever.

This first blog about it will be for people who are thinking of going to law school. The second will be for people who are in law school and are crying into their beers every night wondering how the fuck they can manipulate the lotto and get the fuck out. If I write a third it will be about sparkly unicorns because I’m never going to practice the law so I can’t give advice to current lawyers.

Thinking about going, have not decided yet.

I’ve convinced one friend of mine not to go to law school, but I’ve failed many, many others. There are myriad websites saturating the internets which are filled to the brim with advice for wannabe JDs who haven’t taken the plunge yet. My advice to these poor souls is to do a google search for fun things like “law school sucks,” and “I hate law school.” You know already why you want to go—right? You want money, prestige, you want your mom to think you’re awesome, your family wants you to start tax shelters for them even though no one makes more than $40k a year, you want to spring your cousin Billy from the can. . .

Truly, though, look at the other side of it. Unlike a lot of sites I won’t say “don’t go no matter what, you will regret it,” I won’t, because I know people who enjoy law school and being lawyers. One went to a much better school than I, another to one of the proverbial TTTs. They have gone on to careers they enjoy that don’t sap every last bit of vitality from them.

So you might be thinking, OK Ms. Wiseass, how will I know if it’s right for me? How do I know you’re not just a loser who sucked at it and is foisting your sour grapes onto the general populace now?

For one, my grades are SPECTACULAR. That is not at all what’s stopping me from being a lawyer, thank you very much. It’s my personality that is the problem.

Here are some hints I recommend you take to see if it’s really for you.

When you are not cut out for law school.

1. If you go through law school forums and you are appalled by the sheer elitism of the very phrase/acronym TTT, you might get annoyed by law school.

2. If you take the myers briggs personality test, which I suggest you do, and you get some touchy feely personality type, don’t go to law school.

Seriously, my personality type is INFP. Generally listed as desirable careers for this personality type are things like “actor” “writer” “artist” “musician.” I took one of these bastard tests and got such result from an actual CAREER COUSELOR at my undergrad institution and SHE suggested lawyer. What a damn waste of money. Seriously, how does a list of careers which basically equate to “hippie” and “starving hippie” lead one to suggest law school?

That’s another issue with the whole shebang in general. This is said so much on “don’t go to law school” blogs and posts, but it bears repeating. If your dreams are filled with visions of a job that in reality leads to starving hippiedom, the next best option is not attorney. Really, it’s not. If you are sitting there like, “why gee I would so love to travel with an orchestra and write novels, but I think I shall go to law school so I can have a backup plan,” I order you to roll up a newspaper and smack yourself with it. RIGHT NOW.

There is so much out there you can do that is *enjoyable* that won’t take so much time away from your intellectual pursuits.

3. If you were handed an assignment where you have to delve through legal minutiae to tell a prosecutor whether he or she should prosecute someone for lifting a pen from a grocery store, and your first inclination is to say, “what a goddamn waste of taxpayer money! Why the fuck would anyone even consider this?” You may want to reconsider law school.

4. You mentally left high school a long ass time ago. High school sucked and the thought of going back to it makes you want to slap everyone you know with a rolled up newspaper.

I thought I could just ignore the soul-crushing aspects of law school which are so hard to describe. For me what was the worst was this feeling like I didn’t fit in with anyone. It’s like high school—in the first month one woman asked a whole bunch of people to go out to a bar after school and purposely didn’t invite me. I have *no idea* what I did to make her dislike me—I suppose it’s because I’m just an aloof, introverted person. I take a while to open up. I don’t really care what the reason was, I’m a goddamned adult and I am not amused by childish shenanigans. I felt like crap over being left out of everything for a while, since I’ve never been the cliquish type, but when I actually made other friends I learned that this group of people are really dicks to everyone not in their clique and it wasn’t just me. Seriously though, does this shit sound appealing?

Some people from this same group were seriously sitting in the back of the classroom in another semester whispering to each other about what they thought about everyone who walked into the room. I could HEAR them, they didn’t care.

Read those forums for people who are applying to law school and stuff. I don’t remember what they’re called and I can’t be arsed to google them for you. The immaturity is rampant. I especially hate that the guys act all annoyed that law school women aren’t hot enough for them, as if they exist for their viewing pleasure. The attitude a lot of people have is not welcoming, it’s not friendly.

If you become mentally drained in an unwelcoming environment, you will not like law school.

5. You’re weird. Quirky. Eccentric. You are also sensitive to criticism and internalize everything. A lot of getting a legal job is being a perfect little perfect mcperfectson. There are too many fuckers out there getting a J.D., so if you don’t sit up straight enough during an interview, if your clothes aren’t too great, if you don’t seem “enthusiastic,” if you have too many freckles, whatever, they’re not gonna want to hire you. Maybe this isn’t entirely true—but law school is also filled with little lunch presentations that are supposed to help you interview. They instead filled me with dread because I felt like the speakers were describing *me* when describing the people law firms don’t give offers to. Instead of trying to change I just felt totally paralyzed, like I was worthless and I was going to be unemployed forever with a JD.

6. You don’t have a goddamned clue what being a lawyer entails. No, Judge Judy and Perry Mason don’t fucking count. No matter WHAT your mom says.

7. You love to write! You even love to write research papers! This might behoove you in the legal field—but that perfectly describes me and I LOATHE legal writing. I feel like it’s torturous drudgery. I’m going to set my bluebook on fire in effigy when I graduate from this dump. If you think ABA sucks, bluebook will make you want to set your rectal hair on fire. You’ll want another pain to take your mind off of it.

8. You have some other job in mind you’re going to use your law degree for. This is actually what I did. I knew a long time before going to law school I didn’t want to be a lawyer, but I wanted one of those government jobs where you can have a J.D. or any other terminal degree to get into. The reason I suggest not doing this is, you’re putting all your eggs in one hell of an expensive basket. If you change your mind, like I did, holy crap, your other option is totally insufferable.

9. You want goo gobs of money! Yay. Everyone wants goo gobs of money. Really, though, tough toenails. Even if you make a lot of money in law, you won’t have time to enjoy it. You can buy a 75 inch LCD television and get every video game system ever made, maybe, but good luck ever having time to enjoy it! Think about it too—if you’re working 80 hours a week for $130k a year, you are really making way less than half of that at a “normal” job when you consider overtime. If you’re smart enough to go to law school you can probably get a masters degree that would amount to $65k a year in a normal job, and that’s not even considering overtime. You could become a plumber and do that and have almost no student loans. $65k a year is friggin plenty to have what you need in life. $55k is plenty. It’s more than enough. You do not need an 8 story house with Jetsons’ style moving floors.

10. These are totally random and I’ll probably want to add to this, but this is the last one for now. The idea of rubbing your face in someone’s herpes-infested rectum sounds more appealing than schmoozing and networking. Holy crap this one is almost as important as #1. In law school the word networking fills the halls as often as a Taco Bell bathroom stall gets filled with the scent of the liquid byproduct of their indigestible food. Half of all the activities you will be invited to will be so you can meet other lawyers who will hopefully offer you a job if they think you’re cool. If you hate crowds, if you hate talking to people, if you hate kissing ass, if you hate having to appear cool and professional when you’re really a blithering mess of nerves, if you can’t disguise the fact that you’re a blithering mess of nerves, if you say something socially unacceptable just about every time you open your mouth. . .yeah. Just think about it.

When you will probably love law school.

This is all based on anecdotal observation of various law students and lawyers who in fact like law school and the law.

1. And MOST IMPORTANT—the idea of working substantially more than 40 hours a week for the duration of your career (or at least a great deal of it) is okay to you. You don’t want to just have a “job” so you can come home and write pornographic Yu Gi Oh fanfiction. You aren’t very close to your spouse and you don’t care if your time with this person is limited, or you are single and want to remain that way.

You may enjoy law school and the law if you don’t need goo gobs of time to spend with friends and family. I’m not saying lawyers never see their families. I’m saying—consider how MUCH time you need with your family. I personally need LOTS and LOTS of time with my husband because he is my best friend, my sexy squishy pookie pie and I could not imagine only spending a couple of quality hours a day with him. I want a puppy someday, it wouldn’t be fair to get one if I came home late every night. If you think coming home at 7 or 8 pm every night and spending a couple of hours until bed with these people is sufficient because you are totally a career minded person, you will enjoy it. If you think I’m being sarcastic and no one is like that, you are wrong. Plenty of people are like that. Plenty of people find their careers to be the highlight of their lives. I don’t—I prefer sex and video games.

Lawyers who make a lot of money work lots and lots of hours. You can get a law job that’s a JOB and you go home at 5. This is called a government job. But you will not be making the kind of money your family thinks you will. You’ll still be making *good* money, but not Rolls Royce money. You’ll be making the same kind of money you could have made anyway with a masters or a PhD in something else.

I cannot tell you how important this is. Really I just cannot emphasize it enough. I’ve talked to lawyers who like their jobs and talk about their 10 hour days (with a few hours on Saturdays) as if that’s a pretty sweet, low key gig. I’m usually horrified at this while I nod and pretend like, oh yeah, those hours are totally reasonable. I’m lazy. I do not want to come into work on Saturdays, ever, unless I’m getting some other day off during the week instead. I don’t want to work 10 hours a day, either. And that *is* pretty damn nice for a law firm job. I was talking to someone once when I still figured I’d be a lawyer and we were saying how happy we’d be if we just found a 50-55hr a week job. One of my lawyer friends who likes his job says “that’s just America, that’s just how it is if you want to make money. You work long hours.”

Barf! There are other options! I cannot handle work as my life. I will talk about other options in the blog after this.

1a. I already said this but just as an aside—you will enjoy the law if your career is DEEPLY IMPORTANT to you. If you see a job as a vehicle to sustain your life so you can go home and do what you REALLY want to do, law school is a BAD idea. Law school is good if you really think the idea of climbing a career ladder is awesome. If you like the idea of working your ass to the nub so you can be on top and gain the prestige which comes from it. If you think your career is a central, focal part of your life.

2. You like to read Drudge Report. I have no idea why but it seems like everyone who thinks law school is TOTALLY AWESOME surfs this site during class.

3. You can stop yourself from thinking too much about certain things. I mean yeah law is all about arguing stuff. But you’re going to have a rough time with it if you can’t stop thinking things like, “dude why are these dudes in court? They just got lost at sea and had to eat someone to survive! They are totally traumatized and need years of therapy.” Or, “ok, I get that you can avoid paying health care benefits to your employees if you set up a shelter organization in the Maldives and transfer exactly 2/5 of your assets plus one magical golden amulet into it and then bake a cake, but isn’t that a shitty thing to do?” If you can be cold and calculating and satisfied with illogical and even heinous answers as long as it fits within the parameters of the law, you’ll probably enjoy law school.

3. You like to wear suits for no reason. People who think law school is TOTALLY AWESOME do this.

4. Stuff just rolls of your back. You will laugh and still think you are the greatest thing since sliced bread even when you just took a final your entire grade is predicated on and didn’t know the answer to one question so you wrote a dirty limerick instead. If you don’t feel like your existence and the entirety of your happiness hinges on your success in law school, and you can go with the flow, you’ll be ok.

If you will probably cry for a month until grades come out because there was one more thing you could have said about the UCC but you forgot, do your stomach a favor and avoid the ulcers. I think more people of the latter type personality end up going to law school, but it’s unfortunate. It’s also why everyone gets the goddamned flu whenever it’s time for finals. You can cut the tension with a knife sometimes.

5. You could eat pizza every day for every meal and still think it’s awesome. Especially shitty corporate pizza.

6. You’ve never touched an alcoholic beverage and you never plan to. For some reason it’s way too easy for law students and lawyers to become alcoholics. I enjoy me some booze, but it’s bad when it becomes a crutch.

7. You can toot your own horn. You love tooting your own horn. You stop strangers in the street to tell them how awesome you are. The law does not favor the humble. This doesn’t mean you have to be an arrogant ass—you just have to be confident in yourself, and you have to be ready to tell people what you can do for them. You have to make employers confident that you will contribute to the bottom line. Being a milquetoast is no way to accomplish this.

8. You’re not in a situation where soul-crushing debt will dictate what you do with your life. I am lucky in this respect—I have no kids. I’m married so I’m not the only income in my household. I go to a school with relatively cheap tuition. The debt is what becomes mind-numbing for a lot of people. I think they’re like, “oh I’m going to make a billion zillion dollars a year and pay it off fast.” Then they get into law school and realize they’d rather sodomize themselves with a Tabasco-covered broom handle than work at a big law firm, but then they can’t take a lower-paying job because of THE DEBT, oh gawd, the debt.

9. You’re an arrogant asshole! Argh! I don’t think everyone who is a good lawyer or good at law school is an arrogant asshole, as I’ve already said, but read the comments on forums about people giving advice about law school. There are always a bunch of total shitfucks who say things like “lolololol I graduated from the best university EVER and now I’m filthy stinking RICH you’re just upset that you’re not as AWESOME as I am,” or they’ll respond to someone saying “I went to a TTT and I’m making $100,000 a year if YOU can’t find this success you just SUCK.” These people are entirely incapable of imagining a world where money is not the most important thing on earth. If you are reading this paragraph, and read the one where I was talking about family time, and you just don’t get it, or thoughts of “wow you lazy asshole” or “suck it up!” have popped into your head, law school just might be great for you.

10. Finally. . .you’ll probably enjoy law school and the law in general if nothing makes you happier than competition. I am way more into cooperation than I thought I was before law school. I was always really competitive *with myself.* I always wanted A’s to be happy. I always wanted to be at the top of my class because I enjoyed that kind of competition. Listening to people comparing their rank and grades now, though, is not appealing to me at all. I’m pretty sure only about two people in my law school are aware that I’ve ever gotten a grade above a C and that’s how I’d like to keep it. I like the idea that, since I am good at stuff, I can talk to the people around me about it and help them. In law school you want other people to not do as well as you. In undergrad I *hoped* to help people get A’s on tests if they asked me to explain something and I did a good job.

When I say competition, I do not mean with yourself. If you enjoy besting other people, that’s what I mean. If you take great pleasure in the idea that you were just BETTER than 90% of your class, this is the kind of competition for you. I feel more like, well I got better grades than 90% of my class because I’m good at taking tests, but wow that is such an arbitrary measure—so many people I know whose grades aren’t nearly so good would make far better lawyers than I ever could be.

Ok that was a lot longer than I thought it would be. Next time—what to do when you’re already in law school and panicking about it, aside from dropping out, which is usually the only option I ever see! I know people just refuse to do that for various reasons.